PLEASE STOP CODDLING THEM.

The other day I read a tweet by an acquaintance whom I respect as intelligent, worldly and compassionate. My friend is in Academia. His function entails counseling and organization of events for students involved in just causes. His tweet, phrased as a shared dilemma of conscience, stimulated my response. 

A minority organization on his campus wanted to get a professor fired. The professor in question was not accused of or even suspected of any wrongdoing, as far as I could tell. The minority group wanted the professor fired because he was using his expertise as a lawyer to defend someone the minority students had decided was unworthy of a defense by someone they knew. Or, looking at it another way, the minority students decided to judge the lawyer as complicit in the defendant's alleged crimes. 

The university in question is one of America's bastions of privilege and elitism. The minority students in question live an exalted life on a campus in the heart of one of America's most enlightened cities. Let's just say that I cannot afford their neighborhood.

The ethical dilemma of my friend was whether or not to support the students' demand for the firing of the professor. When I suggested that this seemed an obvious choice to me, based on the fact that the lawyer was simply practicing the profession which landed him his job at the university in the first place, my friend explained that his consideration to support the students was based in the fact that the professor also functions as a residential counselor to these minority students since he is of that same minority. 

What? I was baffled by that. Mind you, there is no public accusation against the professor by any students that he has violated their personal integrity in his role. 

It boils down to this: My friend was ambivalent about not treating the university students as children with "feelings" about the situation. Of course, I thought, "What about the "feelings" of an accomplished professor who is tarred and feathered by his students for simply being the expert he is?"

This is such an obvious example of the infantilization of our youth by parents, employers and professors. The insanity of victimizing a skilled professional for doing his job as opposed to telling a mob of insecure whiners to grow up is an example of everything wrong with today's educational systems and parenting methods. Please stop coddling these young people. They must be taught to behave like rational adults, responsible for processing their own feelings instead of acting them out in mobs to harm others.