Being robbed of a snow day is rough.
As college students, this is nothing new. No matter how much we do a dance for the weather gods, the official decision lies with the administration. On Monday, Bradley students celebrated when they were graced with a lovely freeze day. Illinois State students were fortunate enough to hibernate in their warm beds Monday and Tuesday. University of Illinois students were not so fortunate.
Around the same time many other Illinois universities received the news of their freeze day treat, U of I sent out an email that advised their students on how to stay warm. Chancellor Phyllis Wise delivered the unpopular news that classes would still be in session.
Yes, we all wish we could riot the streets when things like this happen. Although it’s probably not worth it seeing as you’d probably get frostbite in this scenario. As a college student, you are expected to respect your university. After all, we are members of higher education, right? Apparently some U of I students decided to abandon their morals and let their anger take an outward racist turn. At first, it was nothing too harmful, just complaints about having to walk through the cold, but it quickly escalated.
It began more intense with an all too inappropriate hash tag, “#f***Phyllis.” Even then it still seemed like nothing too out of the ordinary until tweets like this began to appear:
“In a room with Phyllis Wise, Adolf Hitler, and a gun with one bullet. Who do I shoot?”
Ignoring all grammar rules students have learned over their extensive path in education, they started to take a racist twist with attacks on her Asian background:
“Phyllis Wise is the Kim Jong Un of Chancellors.”
Twitter is great for complaining, and I am totally in support of using emoticons to express my anger, but students in Champaign took it WAY too far. Need I remind college kids that one of the perks granted to you in higher education is that class is optional? Why isn’t your biggest protest, I don’t know, maybe, NOT going? Instead it’s better to sit behind your smart phone and hurt a member of your community? Even on social media, I encourage people to think before they speak because it’s much more permanent than a bad joke overhead in the hallway.
These people should be ashamed of themselves. Eastern Illinois University students still had classes, but they didn’t make national news for any disrespectful rants.
These are times where I hate the anonymity of the Internet. Just because you have the platform to spew out your anger, it doesn’t mean you should abuse this outlet.
Remember that little lesson we learned back in kindergarten? Treat others as you would like to be treated. Maybe the University of Illinois needs to include a new general education class: Edict 101: The Golden Rule.
Congratulations to the Illini community that now has more than their football record to be ashamed of.
