The President of Michigan’s Albion College was confronted by a student, who’s girlfriend was being harassed by leftists over her white skin, and responded, explaining that it is only, “appropriate that all of us of privilege feel uncomfortable from time to time.”
President Mauri Ditzler, made a comment to the student Trevor Hill about his girlfriend, identified by the student paper as Ashley Witowski during a Student Senate meeting on 25th September at which Ditzler fielded questions from students about the campus’s increasing fraught race relations and campus Antifa violence.
Trevor Hill recounted to Ditzler that Witowski was shoved and was verbally berated as she was trying to enter the dining hall, a violation of the students handbook’s rules for peaceful protest.
Hill asked Ditzler, who opted to stand in solidarity with the demonstrators, “Are you aware of this harassment and what are you going to do about this?”
The president responded vaguely to this saying that he had heard reports of the incident and some “mistakes were made” but also added that protests were effective only if the people were made to listen, “Obviously, on a busy day, lots of protests, on a hot day, lots of things happening, people are going to make statements they regret” he further added.
He said, “What I hope we do is become a community that understands how to articulate our positions and understands where the limits are.”
Witowski reportedly left the room “visibly upset” after the president’s remarks.
Ditzler was on record the month earlier, supporting the racial protests even as complaints about assault began to trickle in, in an interview with the college newspaper. He, “noted that peaceful demonstrations were designed to make us feel uncomfortable” and that his response to the alleged assault was also “an example of how privilege (mine in this example) causes all of us to view events differently when we are in a privileged position.”
Students who attended the meeting said it was very clear to them Ditzler was referring to Witowski, and that he disregarded her alleged assault as a learning experience for a person of “privilege.”
One student also told the Fix she was so disturbed by Ditzler’s comments at the forum that she withdrew from Albion the next day.
A spokesperson for ditzler said, “Since the demonstration and Student Senate meeting Sept. 25, [Ditzler] has made a point of talking with students, staff, and faculty who have wished to discuss the situation and he will continue to do so.”
Other students present at the forum meeting expressed their own concerns about Ditzler’s commitment to student safety.
