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The University as Cascading Failure

Some universities – like some doomed airline flights – generate one little disaster after another until the whole place crashes.

True, most universities don’t actually crash; football games and fraternities endure, and classrooms have people in them. But we all know the universities that have sort of had it, like the University of Louisville, whose embedded brainless good ol’ boyism dooms it to scandal after scandal for all eternity. (Put “Louisville” in my search engine if you can stomach it.) The U of Smell, as it’s now known, has become a smutty joke.

The latest news out of Texas A&M, aka Rancho Manziel y Perry, is maybe a smallish story, maybe even a routine story about routine racism at a school known for it. The latest thing is a bunch of Texas A&M students harassing some non-white high school kids who were visiting campus to see whether they might want to attend a school that seems to boast a significant number of people who really really dislike people who look like those high school kids.

Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi … It’s real out there down there. They don’t, like, hide it, or talk in code or anything. Sing, sing a song, sing out loud, sing out strong, seems to be the approach.

Margaret Soltan, February 17, 2016 2:26PM
Posted in: STUDENTS

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3 Responses to “The University as Cascading Failure”

  1. dmf Says:

    http://journalstar.com/news/local/911/fraternity-brothers-plead-to-lesser-charges-in-fatal-alcohol-overdose/article_fd0055a0-3c97-575f-8193-da37c0b01cf6.html

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Yes: I blogged about that fraternity’s adorable heartland name – FarmHouse – a couple of years ago.

  3. JND Says:

    Lots of Aggies in our family, second only to Baylor . . . .

    This event surprised me when I read about it. A&M has a reputation around here in Texas as a friendly campus (a justified reputation, in my middle-aged, white guy experience).

    Boneheads!

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