Dumber Than a Pet Rock

This is the kind of story that you wish was satire:

The University of Wisconsin removed a controversial boulder from its Madison campus Friday after the Black Student Union and other activists objected to its description nearly 100 years ago with a racial slur.

Chamberlin Rock, which rests atop Observatory Hill, is named after a 19th Century geologist and former university president, Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, whose work centered on glacial deposits, according to a bio on the university’s website.

Apparently “woke” students haven’t been able to pin anything on the geologist, but that didn’t stop them:

In October 1925, the university had the boulder excavated and placed prominently atop the hill to honor Chamberlin, who would die in Chicago three years later. The rock was a rare specimen believed to be more than 2 billion years old, and before it was installed on Observatory Hill, only about a foot and a half was visible above ground, according to the article. It was believed to have been carried by glaciers from Canada to Wisconsin.

In the 1920s, a slang term used to describe large dark rocks included the N-word, and it appears in coverage of the rock’s installation.

It was hardly the rock’s fault, but nevertheless the rock had to go, even though “researchers did not uncover other instances in print where the rock was referred to with this word.”

The rock being hauled away

Juliana Bennett, a senior and a campus representative on the Madison City Council, said removing the rock signaled a small step toward a more inclusive school.

“This moment is about the students, past and present, that relentlessly advocated for the removal of this racist monument,” she told the Associated Press. “Now is a moment for all of us BIPOC students to breathe a sigh of relief, to be proud of our endurance, and to begin healing.”

Healing! From the terrible wound of having a rock on campus. But it could have been worse:

Student groups had also demanded the removal of an Abraham Lincoln statue from campus – but university leaders rejected that request.

What passes for higher education in the U.S. is pathetic. Over time, it needs to be improved. But for the foreseeable future, the fewer young people who attend college the better, both for them and for us. Most young people are far better off getting technical training and entering one of the trades or working in manufacturing or a number of other fields. The pay will be better than that of the average four-year college graduate, and at least they won’t be mis-educated by the far leftists who control our colleges and universities.

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