The Carleton University Student Association (CUSA) drops fundraising for Cystic Fibrosis because the disease is not diverse enough. No really. From the CFRA web site:
This is the wording of the Motion (grammatical mistakes are their’s)
“Motion to Drop Shinerama Fundraising Campaign from Orientation Week.
Whereas Orientation week strives to be inclusive as possible;
Whereas all orientees and volunteers should feel like their fundraising efforts will serve the their diverse communities;
And Whereas Cystic fibrosis has been recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men.
Be it resolved that: CUSA discontinue its support of this campaign
Be it further resolved that that the CUSA representatives on the incoming Orientation Supervisory Board work to select a new broad reaching charity for orientation week.”
The only person to vote against this motion was Nick Bergamini, interviewed this morning on CFRA. He said, and I agree, that this is reminiscent of how they banned the pro-life club back in 2006. Meanwhile, Queen’s University is deploying students to monitor private conversations on campus, and University of Calgary is prepared to expel some pro-life students who are planning a demonstration on campus.
So–let me get this straight–we have a bunch of students, who run the student unions, who can’t write, who are willing to ban fundraising for a disease on the basis that it affects white men, which, as it turns out is factually inaccurate. Words fail.
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Brigitte found the answer to the age-old question: What do they teach them in school? To worry about whether an illness is “diverse” enough, that’s what. Two generations of modern educators brought us to this. And people still save and make all sorts of financial sacrifices to send their kids to college. I wonder why.
And another thing: In one part of the world, girls get attacked for going to school (where I’m pretty sure they’re not learning about the proper PCness of various illnesses) whereas here they can’t be bothered to learn how to write simple sentences in their own language. Golly, what a mess.
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UPDATE, Wednesday afternoon: They are apparently about to repeal their decision.
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My late brother in law, who had CF, died many years ago (not long after graduating from university) following an unsuccessful double lung transplant. Prior to this his lung capacity had been greatly reduced, that transplant was pretty much his only hope. He bore that disease, and the knowledge of almost certain death in young adulthood, from childhood.
But I suppose, being a white male, he really didn’t suffer all that much. Not as much as, say, healthy female undergraduates who found to their dismay that they had been fundraising for a fatal disease with a large number of white male sufferers. Poor girls– shouldn’t we organize a march for them or something? A ribbon campaign?
Shinerama has been a mainstay of university orientation weeks since at least 1981 – and we actually did shine shoes, and made a lot of money and had a lot of fun. This is so ridiculous. Inclusivity, diversity – these are the catch-words now. But like so many words, they have taken on new meanings far removed from their Oxford roots. And for the love of Pete, could these people learn some grammar or at least hit F7? Good luck to them finding a “broad reaching charity” that meets their standards (?) of diversity.
Whoever wrote the comment on the students’ grammatical and spelling mistakes is, unfortunately, living in a glass house. There is no such word as “their’s.” It’s “theirs.”
I know University Student Associations are cesspools of uselessness, but this really takes the cake. How terrible of of people with CF to not have some “inclusive” disease … you know, something like breast cancer.
To Mary Ann–Ha! I am always worried about my own grammar mistakes, in particular when poking fun of someone else’s…grammar.
Fortunately (this time) “their’s” is the product of CFRA. Phewf.
On the plus side, they’ll stop adocating for abortion, since this ‘disease’ only affects women. Clearly it’s discrimination to take up a cause that doesn’t impact everyone exactly equally.