Since Harvey Mudd College has a reputation for being a science school, its dorm residents thought it would be a cute idea to have a “mad scientist” themed dorm party – only to be slammed as insensitive jerks who were hurting people with mental-health issues.
Harvey Mudd is one of the five Claremont Colleges, a group of private schools in Southern California, and its residents pitched the “Mudd Goes Madd” dorm party as something that students from all five colleges could enjoy. But the student government at another one of the schools, Pomona College, saw the theme as a slap in the face to the “mental-health community” and refused to fund it:
“We are disappointed at your choice of the name for the event, as well as your rationale for allowing the name ‘Mudd Goes Madd,’” the Associated Students of Pomona College said in a statement, according to the Claremont Independent.
“Your disregard of the concerns of the mental health community and their allies trivializes issues that we deem extremely important to our community,” the statement continued. “Further, the exclusion of the mental health community in the discussion of allowing the event name is inappropriate.”
But get this: Mudd threw the party anyway.
#share#Insensitive? Probably not. In fact, according to the Independent, many of the members of that “mental health community” that ASPC was so worried about were actually offended by the idea that anyone would think they might be too weak to handle it:
“[Autism Spectrum Disorder] is a very serious issue, but treating me like I’m five years old and trying to protect me from every possible trigger doesn’t prepare me for the real world,” an anonymous CMC student said.
In an email to the College Fix, student Steven Glick declared that “this was definitely a win against overzealous PC culture:”
#related#“Students at the Claremont Colleges are tired of having their freedoms compromised in order to avoid upsetting certain groups of students, and the students that the PC police think they are helping are fed up with being told that they are too weak to hear certain words,” he said. “We’re in college — people here want to be treated like adults, not like kindergarteners.”
Pomona College, by the way, is the same school where students flipped out over a post on the school’s website touting its No. 1 Forbes ranking, claiming that it could cause “stress, anxiety, and unhealthy competition” on campus.
For the record, “stress, anxiety, and unhealthy competition” are just a few things that people can expect to encounter in the real world.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter for National Review Online.