The president of Pitzer College in Claremont, CA (about 40 miles from LA) had quite an anti-identity politics conniption fit when a Black woman student in off-campus housing advertised on FB for a non-white roommate.

Pitzer President Melvin Oliver called her post “inconsistent with our mission & values” because the college wants to engage “complex intercultural issues, not to isolate individuals on the basis of any protected status.”

Our man Oliver would really get that intercultural stuff since Pitzer was founded in 1963 as a woman’s college. Its first president was male & all but two of the seven presidents since have also been. Because women don’t get “intercultural issues”?

The young woman found a roommate whose ethnicity was not disclosed but she was not browbeaten or shamed into submission & insisted that living with another non-white person “can be necessary.” Damn straight in a society marinated in racism. It’s hard enough working things out with a roommate without having that crap involved also.