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Campus Stupidity Might Drive Me Into Therapy

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Yesterday, the upper administration of my (truly beloved-by-me) university, George Mason, sent an e-mail to all GMU students to announce that the University is making “counselors” and other staff available “to provide support” for GMU students in light of Donald Trump’s election victory over Hillary Clinton.  Earlier today the GMU administration shared this e-mail with the staff and faculty.

This utter nonsense of treating young adults as if they are emotional snowflakes – as if they are people who are no more emotionally mature than is, say, Donald Trump – is widespread throughout America.  (My colleagues Dick Wagner and Walter Williams alerted me to the sorry fact that a Yale economics (!) professor has made a mid-term exam optional in the wake of Trump’s victory [2].)  Yet no matter how widespread this idiocy, it embarrasses me that some bureaucrats at my beloved George Mason University think so little of our students – and that, apparently, some GMU students think so little of themselves – that they feel that ‘counseling’ is required because of the outcome of a political election.

No one is more fearful of a President Trump than I am.  I share George Will’s assessment of the man as being a “bloviating ignoramus,” and a loose, freakish cannon.  But my emotional state would be made only worse were I subjected to the questioning and the platitudes of university bureaucrats in some counseling office.  I truly hope that none of my students will feel the ‘need’ for such a juvenile and ridiculous exercise, and I’m quite certain that not a single GMU Econ major, graduate or undergraduate, is so disconnected from reality and so lacking in self-respect and intelligence that he or she would avail himself or herself of such a university ‘service.’

I’m eager to discuss this topic with my son, Thomas, who is a college sophomore.  I’m sure that Thomas and I will share several belly laughs at the absurdity of it all.

UPDATE: I forgot to share here part of an e-mail that I received this morning from my colleague Dick Wagner in response to the Yale professor making the taking of a mid-term optional:

Imagine that, you could reduce your teaching burden while comforting your students. Adam Smith would surely have to like that invisible-hand quality.

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