More on the Vietnames flag protest

A brief video of IVC's SSC flag issue:

.....It turns out, OC Reg reporters read Dissent. Marlo Jo Fisher has been working on the “flag” story today, and, well, here it is:

Vietnamese flag removed at Irvine Valley College:

.....Irvine Valley College officials have removed a colorful flag display in the atrium of the student center here, after threats of a large-scale protest from the local expatriate Vietnamese community over the flag depicting the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
.....The 144 miniature flags have hung from the second floor atrium for many years without controversy, in a gesture designed to symbolize the diversity of its student body.
.....On Thursday, college officials removed the display that has hung for a decade, in the wake of threats that busloads of protesters could arrive to disrupt the campus, if the Vietnamese flag were not removed.
....."We wanted to be considerate and represent the diverse population at IVC," campus spokeswoman Diane Oaks said Monday. "We are developing an alternate method of expression."
.....Westminster Councilman Andy Quash and Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen said they met with college officials on Wednesday, after receiving calls from numerous constituents about the flag display.
....."We reminded them that in 1999, in the city of Westminster, that flag hung in a video store led to a 49-day protest peaking at 50,000 people," Quash said. "I'm sure the college hung the flag without realizing it is very provocative to certain students."
.....Nearly two months of protests in early 1999 were ignited after a video store owner put up a Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag and a poster of Ho Chi Minh in his window.
.....Thousands of protesters demonstrated between January and March over the issue, which led to court battles over the owner's right to display the symbols even though they were causing a public disturbance.
.....Nearly 5 percent of IVC's students are Vietnamese-American, Oaks said.
.....Nguyen said she had been contacted by several constituents, and she agreed with them that the flag should come down.
....."It's offensive because this flag represents a regime that is very dictatorial and does not respect human rights," Nguyen said. "It is not democratic, and that is why a lot of Vietnamese Americans are here as refugees. To see that being honored, well, millions of people lost their lives over that flag."
.....College officials decided to remove all the flags, instead of merely the Vietnamese one, because of safety concerns. Occasionally, she said, students will swipe the flags, and the college was concerned about the safety of students leaning over a second-floor atrium wall to filch them.
.....The flags, initially purchased a decade ago by the student government, are in storage, Oaks said.
.....Student government vice president Matthew Contorelli, 23, said no one had notified him that the flags were being removed, but he supported the decision in retrospect.
....."It's the best way to keep a peaceful environment," Contorelli said.
.....Downstairs, in the college cafeteria, biology student Robert Fuller said he hadn't noticed the flags missing, but he would have left them up.
....."It's sort of bland out there now, when it was so colorful before," Fuller said about the two-story gray atrium.

Campus crime rates have fallen—for violent crime too

Listening to some of our trustees—especially former cop John Williams—one might get the idea that violent crime is on the rise at American colleges and universities. (See Williams' remarks last week: trustee report; 1:44 into the video.)

Not so.

From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed: “Campus Crime Rates Fell From ‘94 to ‘04”:

The tragic killings at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University have focused unprecedented attention on campus crime. But a special report issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics last week — updating data more than a decade old — found long-term declines in campus crime rates at four-year institutions, and also substantial evidence for the professionalization of campus security forces.

Campus crime rates at four-year college and universities fell 9 percent for violent crimes and 30 percent for property crimes, between 1994 and 2004, the report found. The total in 2004, the bureau said, was 62 reports of serious violent crime and 1,625 reports of serious property crime per 100,000 students. Crime rates were significantly higher at private colleges than at public institutions, the report found….

Perhaps Mr. Williams should consider the possibility that he is exaggerating the threat of campus violence owing to its being more "available" in his thinking:

Essentially the [availability] heuristic operates on the notion that "if you can think of it, it must be important." Media coverage can help fuel a person's example bias with widespread and extensive coverage of unusual events, such as airline accidents, and less coverage of more routine, less sensational events, such as car accidents. For example, when asked to rate the probability of a variety of causes of death, people tend to rate more "newsworthy" events as more likely because they can more readily recall an example from memory. In fact, people often rate the chance of death by plane crash higher than the chance by car crash, and death by natural disaster as probable only because these unusual events are more often reported than more common causes of death. In actuality, death from car accidents is much more common than airline accidents. Additional rare forms of death are also seen as more common than they really are because of their inherent drama such as shark attacks, and lightning.... (Wikipedia: the availability heuristic)

It's frustrating, dealing with trustees (you know the ones) who are opposed to intellectualism and science. You can't reason with them. If you try, you'll be dismissed as being "pointy-headed" and unrealistic.

Trustees: take some logic. Hey, Mr. Probolsky took an "intro to phil" class, and he's much improved! Ain'cha noticed?