Door Decorations Banned at Barnard College to Promote Inclusion

Ah, yes… because someone having their bubble burst by a dry-erase board is what’s really important right now.

From The College Fix:

Students at Barnard College have until February 28 to remove all dorm door decorations, or else school officials will do it for them.

The reason: Barnard doesn’t want students to “isolate those who have different views and beliefs.”

The policy pertains to “dry-erase boards, decorations, or messaging.”

The Columbia Spectator reports that in a February 23 email, Dean Leslie Grinage wrote that although door ornamentations can “serve as a means of helpful communication amongst peers,” sometimes they have “unintended” effects.

“We encourage debate and discussion and the free exchange of ideas, while upholding our commitment to treating one another with respect, consideration and kindness,” Grinage (pictured) wrote.

Some on social media took the decoration ban as anti-Palestinian. NYU professor Jacob Remes said the policy is “deeply messed up” as Barnard is “afraid that someone might express solidarity with Palestinians.”

On the other hand, despite the noted religious exemption, others speculated the policy was a move to ban mezuzahs, an ornament which includes verses from the Torah that many Jews put up in doorways to their residences:

You know what I think is really cool? That there are people out there that don’t have the exact same pattern of thought that I do. I think it would be astoundingly boring if everyone thought and acted in the same way.

There are things plastered all around my campus that I don’t agree with, and do you know what I do? Keep walking…

In my mind, I know that I hold my beliefs for a reason. Having outside opinions proposed to me does not automatically lead to my conversion because I’m confident enough in the decisions that I’ve already made. That’s not to say that my mind is closed – it’s just not easily influenced.

One of our main issues as a society, especially for young people, is that we’re overly concerned with what other people think and feel about us or our ideas. The truth is that if you’re living your life to the fullest, such trivial things will cease to matter to you – you should be too busy to care. People need to be encouraged to get out there and start living…