WHAT THE FUCK? It’s hard to believe that a regent of the University of Minnesota asked this fucking stupid question, but then you notice that it’s a former speaker of the Minnesota house of representatives, a Republican, and it becomes a little less surprising.
Steve Sviggum asks if my university has become too diverse
, from a marketing standpoint
. Jesus.
This clip doesn’t even need a caption. “Has UMN Morris become too diverse for a student to attend?” How is this an actual question being asked during a Board of Regents meeting??? @BSU_UMN @USGumn @mndailynews @StarTribune @Ilhan @kare11 @AlphaNewsMN @KSTP @FOX9 @RWPUSA #UMNProud pic.twitter.com/Tiz5ZCdLuS
— Watch Dog UMN (@WatchDogUMN) October 14, 2022
His concern, or rather his excuse for his concern, is that two people, two bigots, wrote to him to say that the diversity on the University of Minnesota Morris campus made them uncomfortable and they wouldn’t send their kids here.
Seriously. This is one of the people who controls the pursestrings of my university. He got two letters that he should have instantly shredded, and instead he decided to confront our chancellor with the fact that the Republican bigots of Minnesota have his ear.
Fortunately, Chancellor Ericksen responded calmly and appropriately to such an outrageous assertion.
41% of @UMNMorris is categorized as BIPOC students. Too high of a number for Regent Sviggum, it appears as though he’d rather closely mirror the surrounding area of Morris (86.8% white) or Minnesota at large (83% white). Chancellor Ericksen navigates this question with class: pic.twitter.com/CeJgo6jMh2
— Watch Dog UMN (@WatchDogUMN) October 14, 2022
It’s a good thing she has the job, and not me (not that there’s ever a chance I’d end up in such a position), because I’d have just yelled, “Fuck you, asshole” and scrabbled for something on the desk I could throw at Sviggum.