In an unprecedented move last weekend, representatives from Stanford University announced their intentions to ban the humanities in all its forms starting Fall Quarter of the 2018-2019 school year. Provost Persis Drell’s statement about the change:
“Stanford has always been a campus which places inclusion and balance over all else. It wasn’t an easy decision for us, but after a couple minutes of discussion Marc [Tessier-Lavigne, President of Stanford] and I decided that it would be best if we were to get rid of the humanities altogether. That means no more philosophy, literature or writing, religious studies, classics, history, linguistics, anthropology, arts, or any of the rest of that bullshit. We’ll throw out the students, the teachers, the books. We’ll demolish buildings. No more essays! No more words! No more fucking ideas!” The rest of Provost Drell’s statement was an incoherent babble of hate-filled vitriol which descended into a sequence of ones and zeroes as she was escorted off stage.
Stanford has a reputation for being a leader and pioneer of positive change among institutes of higher education. Experts have predicted that universities and colleges near and far will one by one fall under the thrall of a future without humanity and Stanford will at last claim the dark throne of STEM conquest that is its birthright. It’s not as if English majors would ever be able to pay back tuition anyway.
Even as I write this, I can hear their marching, boots stomping, halting right outside my door. I am all there is left of the humanities. If anyone is still able to read this, remember me! Remember my legacy! It’s too late for me, though—I cannot get out. The end comes soon. I hear drums, drums in the deep. They are coming.
