Middlebury College promotes 'demilitarization of White bodies' so that they 'might become human'

Middlebury College in Vermont hosted a virtual event in January in which participants discussed how “demilitarizing White bodies” will make them “become human.”

“Evidence that whiteness is always weaponized is everywhere,” an advertisement for the event on the college’s website said. 

”The August 2017 Charlottesville, VA, march; dog walker Amy Cooper threatening to call the police on birdwatcher Christian Cooper in New York City’s Central Park; US Capitol Police officers taking selfies with armed rioters and Richard Barnett sitting at the desk of the Speaker of the House of Representatives are just a few examples,” it continued, “Whiteness must be demilitarized so that bodies designated as ‘White’ might become human.”

[RELATED: Charles Murray is coming back to Middlebury. Professors are not pleased.]

Titled “Middlebury’s Opportunity to Facilitate the Demilitarization of White Bodies,” the event featured remarks by Associate Professor of Education Studies Jonathan Miller-Lane and was sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs’ Program on Anti-Racist Theory and Action Around the Globe.

At Middlebury, Miller-Lane teaches a course titled, “Social Justice and Evolutionary Spirituality,” where students learn “whether we can create intellectually dynamic spaces of regeneration and renewal, using Zoom, while enrolled at an historically White supremacist institution.” 

Middlebury College has stoked its share of controversy before. 

[RELATED: Three years after violent attack, Charles Murray set for return to Middlebury]

In October, students there staged a Black Lives Matter protest, ignoring COVID-19 restrictions forbidding gatherings of ten or more people. And Campus Reform reported on Middlebury students’ vandalizing the Two Brothers Tavern, a local bar, when the campus closed during the outset of the coronavirus. It was flying an American flag.

In 2017, dozens of Middlebury students were sanctioned after disrupting an event at which Charles Murray was scheduled to speak. Middlebury professor Allison Stranger defended Murray’s right to speak but was assaulted in the process. She suffered injuries requiring her to wear a neck brace, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Murray, who is the author of Human Diversity: The Biology of Race, Gender, and Class, planned to return to Middlebury for a speaking engagement in March 2020 but the event was postponed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Follow the author of this article: Dion Pierre