…we can’t have nice schools.

Students at the University of New Hampshire [boycotted] final exams after a student uploaded a picture of another white student in what appears to be a bedtime facial mask, implying it’s “blackface.”

The university caved in to the students’ demands, and postponed the exams.

The right answer would have been to hold the finals as scheduled, let the pupils who skipped them—for whatever reason—receive failing grades on the exams, with attendant consequences for their course grade for the semester and for their graduation.

This should have been a teaching opportunity.  It isn’t civil disobedience unless the disobeyers suffer the consequences of the disobedience; that’s the only way civil disobedience can point up the absurdity of the thing being protested.  Absent those consequences, all that occurs is a toddler’s temper tantrum.  Or a riot.

But University of New Hampshire management (they don’t deserve to be called leadership) was too timid to do the right thing.  Instead, they’ve surrendered the university to the rabble.  In consequence, all this moment taught was that cry-baby temper tantrums get rewarded.

On top of this, the “outrage” was carefully manufactured.

Twenty-one-year-old Eric Buchwald, whose picture was posted without his permission, claims he didn’t depict blackface and it was just a picture of a clay facial mask he’s been using for the last few weeks.
…
A woman who owns the Instagram account that caused the scandal confirmed to NH1 News that Buchwald wasn’t aware his picture was being used; she said it was taken months ago.

A wasted major teaching opportunity combined with the overt racism of manufacturing a racist beef where it’s obvious none exists—a school doesn’t get much more useless than this.