The Fallacy of Ithaca College’s Microaggression Reporting System

The Student Government Association (SGA) at Ithaca College recently voted to create an online reporting system for microaggressions. This bizarre system would collect the demographic information of the supposed micro-offenders. It is puzzling how exactly the collection of racial data will aid in fixing a manufactured problem whose advocates say pertains to race.

Josh Kelly ’17, a Senator at Large in the SGA, offered said students at Ithaca College “are very aware about microaggressions” and that the SGA’s work on microaggressions has, “been one of IC SGA’s only successful activities in the past few years.” He supports the SGA’s work in this regard, and wants to, “[educate] all IC students about microaggressions and why and how we should and can avoid them.”

Despite these beliefs, Kelly was the only Senator to vote against the proposed system, and his explanation sheds light on the absurdity of the SGA’s actions.

The very definition of microaggressions—verbal, or nonverbal slights which unintentionally communicate negative or offensive messages—includes the notion that they are inadvertent. As Kelly told The Ithacan:

“The very definition of a microaggression is that it isn’t intended, so the very idea of taking legal action against somebody for not intending to say something that happened to be harmful is not my idea of living in a free society.”

Angela Pradhan ’18, the sponsor of the bill, believes that absent legal barriers, the names of reported students should be published. If that weren’t enough, several sponsors of the bill believe Ithaca College could and should take legal action against reported students. Kelly, the Founder and Chairperson of the IC Progressives, voiced his belief that such an opinion, “shows a deep lack of understanding of the bill, microaggressions, and civil liberties.”

It is disconcerting to see such energy and attention directed towards a liberal campus niche issue. The nationwide college emphasis on microaggressions is trivial at best and egregious at worst.

Taking legal action against the perpetrators of supposed microaggressions? This is absurd. Recent examples of microaggressions claims include one against a UCLA professor who noted that the word indigenous is not capitalized, a complaint against a Quinnipiac sorority for a poster containing maracas, and the repeated asking of a Princeton student to pronounce “cool whip” because it sounded funny with his southern accent.

People living and working in the real world have no clue what microaggressions are, nor do they care. This reporting system is a nauseating solution to a non-existent problem.