It’s from McSweeney’s. It’s a joke.
The all-gender bathrooms will be changed to “both-gender” bathrooms because, as biology tells us, there are only two genders.
(The biology department has informed us that this is not true.)
The biology department has been dissolved.
Ha ha, it’s satire that exaggerates a potential problem, therefore it’s funny. Ha ha.
Except…it includes a link to an article on the American Association of University Professors site.
Similarly, the University of North Texas administration recently censored the content of more than two hundred academic courses, including by mandating the removal of words such as race, gender, class, and equity from undergraduate and graduate course titles and descriptions.6 These actions were allegedly taken in response to state legislation banning certain diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and practices, even though the legislation specifically exempted academic course content. While university administrators and faculty members may be compelled to comply with legislation and court orders, even where these run counter to professional and constitutional principles, they remain free to register their disagreement. And under no circumstances should an institution go further than the law demands. Yet, the examples above depict an eagerness to obey on the part of administrative officers, portending a bleak future for higher education.
Wait…is this still satire? Should I keep laughing? Is the AAUP, normally a pretty damned serious site, joking?
No?
I tell you, don’t go to college in Texas. Get out of the state as quick as you can. There may be good colleges there, but the state government is certifiably insane and will be chopping the hell out of the education system there.
One positive thing: when would-be fascists get a smidgeon of power, they tend to overplay their hand, especially if they are stupid.
Let them show their true colors.
And let the do-nothings go on record of being apathic or opportunusts.
Where do you get the idea you’re supposed to laugh at satire? I don’t think many people laughed at A Modest Proposal.
Next they will go after the Mathematics department by banning the = sign.
Engineering, Physics and pretty much everything else will be collateral damage.
Stay out of Ohio as well. The state legislature is pushing a bill to enforce equal access for all viewpoints. Thus physics classes will need to provide equal time to the idea that gravity is just a myth. ( This is not satire).
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardonicism
This is what I call a true joke.
Just wait until a Law school is told that it can’t teach about “equity”…
When Biden screwed the pooch in the debate last year, I realized Trump would probably win, so I convinced my wife we HAD to get out of TX, ASAP. So glad we did. It was horrific when we were there. Now it’s insanely horrific. Charlton-Heston-screaming-“It’s a madhouse”-while-being-firehosed-in-jail-by-apes horrific.
@whheydt #7:
Or a Life Sciences school being told that ‘class’ must be omitted from its Introduction to Taxonomy module.
Rob Grigjanis@2–
The funny part of satire is not the described atrocities and malfeasances, it’s the skewering of the mindsets and personality flaws behind them.
I find A Modest Proposal funny. It’s not the descriptions of the Great Famine and English culpability, which are delivered in straight-up horrifying descriptions. It’s the knowledge that Swift made the absentee lords squirm via public shaming. Candide is extremely funny despite being inspired by the Lisbon earthquake. Voltaire wasn’t poking fun at the tragedy itself but the religious apologetics that followed.
Maybe it’s our horrifying zeitgeist, or maybe it’s my chronic depression, but nothing seems funny anymore. Even when I see things I know are supposed to be funny, the laughter just doesn’t come out.
The last time I had a really good, unforced, honest laugh was a couple of hours after taking a THC gummy.
#11 Akira:
Me neither. I stopped seeing the humor in any of this in 2017, and seeing comedians patting themselves on the back for continuing to dunk on it all is just pathetic and tiresome. Especially Jon “Biden’s just as bad” and “Trump supporters aren’t racist” Stewart. That both-sides-ing POS will never have any respect from me again.
chrislawson @10: Thanks for the unnecessary explanation! I can appreciate irony without necessarily wanting to laugh, or even smile. Maybe we just use the word ‘funny’ differently.
@12,
“and seeing comedians patting themselves on the back for continuing to dunk on it all is just pathetic and tiresome”
This! 100% this. And not just that, it sends a fatal message to people that while innocents rot in Salvadorean gulags or are incarcerated in ICE for-profit prisons, we should still laugh and make merry, because the show must go on.
I keep hoping some of this crap (like the removal of the webpage on the Enola Gay) is malicious compliance aimed at discrediting the anti-DEI crusade. I mean, I can hope, can’t I?
I have a (parody) coffee cup from the University of North Texas with the initials “UNT.” The cup handle on the left forms the letter “C.”
What were they thinking when they named that university? As “Refashioned Hippie” on YouTube would say, “Just show it to one thirteen year old boy.”
I think many of us have reached the point where laughing is very difficult. For me, it’s either try to laugh or cry over all the hate and destruction wrought by the mump cult. And, what’s a real problem is, I don’t see things getting any better in the foreseeable future.
cue martha and the Vandellas
Back in the day at UT Austin (is there really another one?) noted neoliberal Paul Begala was beaten in an election for student body president by a hallucination. I still have my “Hank says: “Get Real’” t shirt! There is still a lot of that spirit alive in Texas, even if it is not obvious to outsiders.
https://lifeandletters.la.utexas.edu/2024/10/hank-the-hallucination-runs-for-president/
@tedw:
laughs Oh, man, Eyebeam, that takes me back… still got the print collections of most of those strips.