Far-left protesters pushing far-left college over cliff

A little more than a year after the student takeover at far-left Evergreen State College drew national attention, the taxpayer-funded institution has suffered a 50 percent drop in freshman enrollment.

Bret Weinstein

The protesters, seeking "diversity"-related measures, confronted a professor outside his office who questioned their actions, Bret Weinstein, and virtually held the college's president hostage in his office, despite his appeasing posture. Weinstein drew the protesters' ire for expressing his opinion that a student plan to expel whites from campus for a day wasn't a good idea. Weinstein said campus police warned him against returning to campus, causing him to hold his biology class in a public park. He and and his wife, Professor Heather Heying, later resigned and reached a $500,000 settlement with the university in a lawsuit they filed.

Evergreen expects only 300 freshmen to attend this year, half the number that enrolled two years ago, making it the only four-year institution in Washington state to see a decrease in applications. It is currently publicly funded for a total of 4,200 students, but this year's total enrollment is expected to be only 2,800. In February, the school announced layoffs and plans to cut $5.9 million from the budget. Meanwhile, the University of Washington announced its largest freshman class ever.

The college's enrollment and financial woes mirror the consequences the University of Missouri has suffered since its mishandling of "hate crimes" charges by students. The Kansas City Star reported in June that Mizzou planned to eliminate 185 positions and lay off 30 staff members to manage a $49 million budget shortfall amid declining enrollment.

Mike Paros, one of the few professors who supported Weinstein and his wife, wrote an update on Evergreen on the website Heterodox Academy, which supports viewpoint diversity on college campuses, HotAir.com reported.

Paros said he's the only remaining Evergreen professor who is a member of Heterodox Academy, a place where he's "found refuge with like-minded academics that share a wariness of like-minded academics."

"Advocacy and activism rather than the pursuit of truth and knowledge is being promoted as a way of recruiting desperately needed new students," he wrote.

'Fear and self-censorship'

Paros pointed out that in 2011, Evergreen changed its official mission statement to read: "Evergreen supports and benefits from a local and global commitment to social justice."

He said that bringing in new faculty or guest speakers "with conservative or centrist political perspectives is considered risky and out of the question at the moment."

"Fear and self-censorship is pervasive among Evergreen faculty, especially under the existing budget crisis."

The professor noted an "independent" External Review Panel exonerated the president, George Bridges, and administrators while blaming Evergreen’s woes on Weinstein and "alt-right" agitators.

Paros observed that the precipitous decline in the freshman class "shows that the students abandoning Evergreen aren’t simply those who were present for the campus takeover last year and who decided not to return."

"It turns out the greatest impact was on students (and parents) considering the school for their future," he said.

If the trend continues over four years, the study body will be about half of what it was before the student takeover, said Paros.

And that's assuming things don't get worse.

"News that Evergreen is struggling, cutting staff positions, and slicing budgets is not likely to help them bring in new students or retain current ones," he observed.

"Failure is not an appealing quality in a college."