Financial Exigency
If I were still the debate coach at William Jewell College, I’d be encouraging the students to debate whether Jewell should cease ongoing enrollment and hand itself over to a land trust controlled by the ancestors of victims of William Jewell’s enslavement.
On Jewell’s Financial Exigency in their own words:
On Jewell’s Financial Exigency in their own words:
Following extensive analysis and thoughtful deliberation, the William Jewell College Board of Trustees has declared financial exigency. In doing so, the Board is deploying an important tool that enables reallocation of resources, restructuring of academic programs, scholarships and significant reductions in force. Exigency will provide leadership the ability to restructure the college programs to better align with the student population and demand. Learn more in our letter to the community.
“Resolved: William Jewell College should resolve its financial exigency (AKA “Our Path Forward” or “A Reimagined Jewell” plan) by returning substantial land and property resources of Jewell Hall and other properties back to ancestors of enslaved people currently living in Clay County, Missouri. Amen.”
“Resolution!!!!”
“Everybody quiet!”
“Thirty minutes of preparation time starts now. Everybody has to prep both the affirmative and negative in the next 30 minutes,” the senior-most prep coach would authoritatively announce from Jewell’s prep space in the Pryor Learning Commons.
“Set your timers…”
“You have to be kidding me. It’s on the Google Doc, everyone just stop!!” a senior would yell at the top of their vocal range. “Let’s do Aff first!”
“Why does it say Amen at the end? Why does Kyle do this type of sh*t? What is wrong with him? Just give us a normal policy debate resolution,” someone would say with the affect of Darlene Conner.
“He thinks this is a policy debate” said the person who got it.
“He’s just messing with us,” a senior would reply. “He’s trying to make this a debate about religion —fine, let’s have one. We’re at a formerly-Baptist college founded by William Jewell? Let’s address that key fact.”
“No, I think he thinks Jewell should actually give back the land.”
“Does he?”
“No, I think he thinks Jewell should actually give back the land.”
“Does he?”
“Yeah, I mean, William Jewell is—in principle—an institution built by Baptist enslavers.”
“Sorry, don’t you mean Dr. Rev. Enslavers,” someone would say and everyone would groan.
“What does Amen even mean? I didn’t think we were a religious college anymore…” a first-year student would innocently ask, as if that could possibly be the point of the puzzle.
“Sorry, I don’t pray, I’m an atheist. I didn’t know that religion was a part of doing college debate,” said a person who looked vaguely like Dana Carvey.
“Of course it is. The motto of the school is Deo Fisus Labora, which means ‘Trust God, Work,’” said the assistant debate coach. “I mean, that’s what the literal paperwork I signed says, and they’re not giving me health insurance, so,” he shrugged.
“Amen is used to express agreement with prayers, blessings, and statements of faith in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” somebody would eventually read out loud from ChatGPT.
Debate team always felt like it had a way of attracting vaguely certain atheists who rejected even basic religiosity as a matter of sport. “It essentially means ‘it is true’ or ‘let it be so.’”
“Like Fiat.”
Debate team always felt like it had a way of attracting vaguely certain atheists who rejected even basic religiosity as a matter of sport. “It essentially means ‘it is true’ or ‘let it be so.’”
“Like Fiat.”
“So, let us pray that the ill-gotten wealth of slavery is returned,” a well-meaning student would summarize, “because stakeholder and slaveholder are eerily similar words,” another finished.
Anything you can imagine can happen.
Anything you can imagine can happen.
Let it be so.
It is true.
Amen.
“Twenty-seven minutes left!”