The Dishonest Rhetoric of the “undocumented” Brigade
Here’s a glimpse into the out-of-touch mindset of college administrators and those who write about them as they try to answer the easy question:
What’s the impact of the new presidential regime on illegal aliens mis-enrolled in US colleges and universities?
In writing about the subject, if you want to conflate mere non-citizenship of a person with border-jumper illegal status, you use the term “undocumented.”
This rhetorical evasion enables cost-free virtue-signaling, which is a favored exercise of higher education supernumeraries and bureaucrats of every sort. By moving “illegals” into a more general category that also includes non-citizen legal residents and foreigners holding visas, the fiction of persecution of the entire group of “undocumented” is introduced and maintained.
This is no accident, of course, and is a form of dissembling. That is to say, lying.
This article, which appears in InsideHigherEd, uses the term “undocumented” 25 times, which is a fraud designed to mask the actual problem of mis-enrollment of illegals into the university.
The primary commentary is by a disingenuous lout called Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, who jerks his knee in a default to “racism,” as you knew he would.
Says Roth, with chest-thumping bombast:
“The University will not voluntarily assist in any efforts by the federal government to deport our students, faculty or staff solely because of their citizenship status,” he vowed. The university will “of course comply with the law. If we get subpoenas, we’ll have to respond to subpoenas,” he said. On the other hand, “if we are just encouraged to create an authoritarian atmosphere in which people are put at risk because of the color of their skin or because of their accent, we won’t cooperate with that.”
Roth is likely too-accustomed to reverting to his standby riff of taking a bold stand against nonexistent racism on his campus to protect “people put at risk because of the color of their skin or because of their accent.” He offers up cost-free virtue signaling by defending folks who aren’t threatened while ignoring the actual issue at hand–illegal aliens who may have been mis-enrolled in his institution and who may be eligible for repatriation to their home countries.
So-called “undocumented” students, faculty, and staff are not “targeted” any more than is a burglar who breaks into your house is “targeted.” Illegals self-target by violating the country’s laws. And of course, border-jumping Illegal aliens are subject to enforcement of US law. That’s a good thing, but Roth and Wesleyan have announced their complicity in circumventing US law.
If you seek examples of smug, cost-free virtue-signaling demagoguery, search no further than Wesleyan University.
Read More on the problems of the politicized campuses at BRUTAL MINDS.