UNC Students for a Democratic Society, a throwback to a time when the Left could actually get things done, seems to only be effective at providing comic relief. From making puppets to oppose the war in Afghanistan to having its leader run for mayor, you can’t help but laugh at their vain attempts to be relevant.
The recent debate about tuition is no different. A recent article in the DTH outlines the divide between SDS and reality. The three main student groups affiliated with the “UNC Education Justice Alliance”- how Orwellian- are SDS, Student Government, and the Campus Y. The latter two groups understand that, in a recession, the state appropriation has to decrease. To make up the gap, sadly, tuition has to go up. Fortunately, UNC has the Carolina Covenant, so lower-income students won’t feel its affect. Middle class students will primarily be affected.
This is unacceptable to SDS. The recent letter to the editor by SDS member Sean Langberg put forward the utterly asinine argument that, somehow, the race and sex of most administrators explains why they want to increase costs. They’re white males, as the logic goes, they don’t care about poor minorities. The comment section is a hilarious read because another SDS member chimes in by conceding the poor minorities are covered by Carolina Covenant, but they won’t apply in the first place because they heard about rising costs. No evidence to support her idiotic argument, but, in their alternate reality, this makes complete sense.
Student Government and the Campus Y understand reality with its (apparently) well-known white, male bias. They are putting forward proposals to limit the damage, but understand that tuition will go up. As it will.
Which just goes to show how useless SDS is as an organization. Given their track record of failure, why does the DTH even pay attention to them?