The U of M Duluth shows that, if you seek to impose policy via grievance, it’s really as simple as 1-2-3!
In this case, it’s the case of Blair Moses. Mr. Moses wanted UMD to install more “Gender-Neutral Bathrooms”.
Now, I’m not here to judge Mr. Moses’s goal; I know people with gender issues, and it’s not a trival thing.
On the other hand, UMD is a public institution, supported by tax dollars, and bathrooms aren’t cheap, and it’s somewhat illuminating to notice the degree to which policy can by pushed by shrill, intransigent insistence (see also: thousands of yobbos with purple-painted faces demanding we all knuckle under to the NFL’s blackmail so they don’t have to find some other meaning in life than supporting Zygi Wilf’s real estate investment “their team”).
Did I say “simple as 1-2-3?”
Why yes – I did:
Step One: Make a Shrill Demand: No matter how outrageous the demand is, state it as an absolute:
In late April, Moses sent a letter to the administration with two demands. First, he insisted they “take immediate action to begin the process of designating more gender neutral bathrooms.”
Step Two: Ratchet Up The Emotion!: Budgeting and finance are such dry, empirical subjects. Emotion sells better.
How much emotion? In the movie “The Usual Suspects”, the Turkish arch-villain Keyser Söze operates under the axiom that when you show you’ll go further than your opponent will, you win.
And Blair Moses certainly goes there:
Second, he demanded an “announcement stating the said day of change.”
In the letter, Moses threatened that if his demands were not met by April 26, he would begin a hunger strike for three weeks or more.
Step 3: Work On That End-Zone Happy Dance For When Minnesota Bureaucrats Acquiesce in the face of your shrill, queue-jumping demand for your priorities to be pushed ahead of everybody else’s:
Late in the day on April 26, Moses uploaded a video to YouTube claiming he had begun his hunger strike and was “sweating” because he “had not eaten” all day. He continued to cite current policy regarding “gendered” bathrooms, describing them as “oppressive” and a “problem” on campus.
No, really:
The very next day, April 27, the university administration ceded to both of his demands.
Chancellor Lendley C. Black issued a campus-wide e-mail stating the school would take “immediate steps” to resolve the issue and would “provide two gender neutral restrooms” in the student center. Additionally, she pledged that all new construction projects and remodels would include at least one gender neutral restroom.
Who says college doesn’t teach anything these days?
If I were a betting man – and I’m not – I’d wager money that we see hunger strikes over meat at the cafeteria, cars on campus, and finally the fact that it costs to go to UMD at all.
Any action on that bet?