Mansfield’s policy on social order and discrimination has been labeled “condescending” and “painfully paternalistic” by Fire’s Samantha Harris.

Each month, the individual rights in higher education campaigners, FIRE, features a college or university which it believes to have a particularly egregious speech code as its Speech Code of the Month.

The Speech Code of the Month feature is to serve both to educate the public about the broader problem of speech codes on campus and to use public pressure to encourage particular institutions to abandon repressive policies.

This month, they have targeted Mansfield, with its discrimination policy.

The policy reads – “It is everyone’s responsibility to create a social order that is free of discrimination. We are obligated to examine our own behavior and to provide role models for others which are free of racism and other actions which either diminish the self-esteem or any person or create an atmosphere in which their striving for competence is diminished. … If any member of the university community is subjected to behavior which they believe is racist or discriminatory, they should contact the Social Equity and Multicultural Affairs Office”

The underlying assumption of this policy is that Mansfield students are so weak that they cannot be exposed to anything that would “diminish [their] self-esteem” or their “striving for competence”, writes Harris.

“I would hope that my university already presumed me to be competent when they admitted me, but perhaps some college administrators think striving for excellence is a bridge too far. Might some students feel diminished in their self-esteem when they read that, to Mansfield, they are striving just to become competent?”