Carleton University students: Cystic Fibrosis is white man's disease...

The Shinerama tradition of shining shoes, singing a song and chanting on the corner of Sunnyside and Bank for spare change has ended.

Carleton University Students’ Association’s (CUSA) orientation will no longer raise funds for cystic fibrosis, after a vote 17 to 2 at the Nov. 24 CUSA council meeting.

The proposal to abandon Shinerama was put forward after it was “recently revealed to only affect white people, and primarily men,” according to the motion.

“We have a diverse community,” CUSA vice-president (finance) Kweku Winful said. “We need something that is more representative of the greater student [body] than just one small group . . . we need to appeal to a larger demographic.”

From the Carleton student paper

Jonathan Kay (Nat'l post story here) points out that had the students even bothered to look in wikipedia, they would have found:

“Approximately 1 in 25 people of European descent … is a carrier of a cystic fibrosis mutation. Although CF is less common in these groups, approximately 1 in 46 Hispanics, 1 in 65 Africans and 1 in 90 Asians carry at least one abnormal CFTR gene. Cystic fibrosis is diagnosed in males and females equally.

The motion was introduced by the science rep on council...

One can only wonder.  I mean, will we learn next that CUSA has rejected all fundraising for breast cancer, since it well affects primarily women.  And Alzheimer's, since it affects primarily old people, or anything to do with pediatric leukemia, or sickle cell anemia.  I think it great for the students to consider other causes for fundraising, but the reasons given for discontinuing this project are simply ludicrous.

macleans is saying that they will now "revisit" the decision.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a vision of George Grant delivering a lecture at the University of King's College many years ago: "The university is dying".

Comments

[Mike Somerville]

University is the opposite of diversity

[joseph]

A while ago Carleton had a move to ban pro-life student groups. I blogged about it sometime last year, I think. At least they make the news...

[Brad F]

It just goes to show that students, particularly Carelton students, are often idiots.

[joseph walker]

One of the online comments at the CBC site was: "Remember, the K in Carleton stands for quality". I am amazed that there was either such an unquestioning acceptance of the claims of the motion, or such a disregard for the evidence which contradicted the claims of the motion.

Then again, perhaps it's a case of "every claim is to open to scrutiny, except my own..."

[Leslie]

I heard it said once that university is just high school with beer.