Evergreen State College closed campus on Thursday and warned students and faculty to stay away because of an unspecified threat of "campus violence" - though it's just as likely they're using the episode as an excuse to shut down the protests that have effectively brought life on campus to a halt over the past week since a campus biology professor objected to a planned demonstration that asked white students and faculty to leave campus for a day.
After the threat, the school asked students and faculty to either leave campus, or return to their dorms and await further instruction, local NBC affiliate K5 reported. It’s “unclear” whether the threat is related to the protests.
Protests erupted on the Evergreen campus last week after biology professor Bret Weinstein sent an email to colleagues objecting to a planned demonstration that asked white students and faculty to leave campus for a day. Students confronted Weinstein on campus last Tuesday, shouting over the professor and demanding that he resign until the commodtion drew the attention of campus police. The "triggered" protesters then retreated to the campus library, where they barricaded themselves inside. Police have told Weinstein to hold class off campus because they believe the angry SJWs are a threat to his safety.
University President George Bridges has more or less kowtowed to the protesters. Though he said he wouldn't fire Weinstein because faculty "need to be able to speak their mind," he has agreed to a list of demands from the SJWs that includes more sensitivity training for campus police officers.
Videos of the confrontations at Evergreen have circulated online, where they've been roundly mocked. This has apparently angered some of the protesters, who've demanded that the university investigate the “theft” of the videos.
Weinstein’s email objecting to the “Day of Absence Day of Presence” protest was circulated on Twitter. In it, he characterizes organizers’ demand that white students vacate campus for a day as “an act of repression.”
"There is a huge difference between a group or coalition deciding to voluntarily absent themselves from a shared space in order to highlight their vital and under-appreciated roles (the theme of the Douglas Turner Ward play Day of Absence, as well as the recent Women's Day walkout), and a group or coalition encouraging another group to go away. The first is a forceful call to consciousness....the second is a show of force and an act of oppression in and of itself.
Here's the (incredibly thoughtful and well-written) email. pic.twitter.com/3NecW0tNfw
— William Treseder (@williamtreseder) May 24, 2017