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There is a saying that goes, “The inmates are running the asylum.” Soon, that may well be the case for all of Britain’s institutions of higher education.
As reported by The Telegraph, universities will be forced to pander to every single demand, no matter how inappropriate, ridiculous or stupid they may be, of “snowflake” student pansies if highly controversial changes to the country’s university ranking system are approved, education leaders say. (RELATED: Read more news about stupidity at Stupid.news)
Currently, the British government is facing a cross-party revolt in the House of Lords over a proposal to ‘reform’ higher education that include putting student satisfaction at the center of the new ranking system.
Any rational person can see where this will lead, say opponents: Unreasonable demands for more “safe spaces,” the outright banning of any speech that the snowflakes don’t like, the adoption of goofy new curriculum that will become mandatory for all students, and so on.
Opponents also believe that the new ranking system will create a “fantastically dangerous” culture, where school officials will be regularly forced to give in to all kinds of student demands, no matter how unreasonable.
The Telegraph reported further:
“Safe space” and “no platform” movements have swept across campuses including a campaign to ban Germaine Greer from giving a speech over her “offensive” comments.
Thanks to outsized influence on Western educational ‘standards’ by the loony political Left, this is what higher education is becoming: Catering to namby-pamby crybabies who have been systematically stripped of any and all normal coping mechanisms that come with something we call life.
“Universities are increasingly nervous about doing anything that will create overt dissatisfaction among students because they are being told that student satisfaction is key,” said Baroness Wolf, a King’s College London (KCL) professor. She added that such nervousness is dramatically affecting the “willingness” of university officials to push back against even the most ridiculous demands, “which in the past have been removing statues, safe spaces and no-platforming.”
The entire movement to change the ranking system is nothing short of “a direct threat” to university education and academic standards, as well as a school’s ability to “stand up for freedom of speech,” she said.
The new system is “fantastically dangerous” because the primary way to ‘satisfy’ a student is to not give them any serious work but still give them a high grade, which of course, teaches them nothing while preparing them for nothing in the real world.
“This will reduce standards and undermine quality,” Wolf continued. “I just think this is totally mad, and destructive of everything universities stand for.”
Wolf, Baroness Deech, a former senior proctor at Oxford, Prof. Julia Black, interim director at London School of Economics, and Gill Evans, a professor emeritus at Cambridge University, also spoke to The Telegraph of their concerns.
The ‘reforms’ are contained in the Higher Education and Research Bill, which is being supported by the Universities Minister Jo Johnson. It recently reached the House of Lords, where it was met with widespread criticism.
The proposed measure will essentially institutionalize mediocracy and under-achievement. Though not every student will want to be coddled and ‘protected’—many will actually want to earn a degree by learning something—far too many will be intentionally under-served and ill-prepared to handle the rigors of life, and all at their demand.
Evans, a professor of Medieval Theology, said the new criteria will also create an attitude among university chancellors of “bother the kids but we had better give in as we stand to suffer more for fighting it out,” she said.
The same craziness is spreading throughout American institutions of higher learning as well, as evidenced by a series of protests last year tied to racial issues, as well as the banning of any conservative opinion on campuses.
Natural News founder/editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, believes millions of these precious little snowflakes won’t survive the next “natural selection” event because they simply won’t have the skills to cope with it.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for Natural News and News Target, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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