College student denies club, claims ‘Yacht’ is offensive, elitist

A Pitzer College student senator helped deny official recognition of a club because of, in part, its “problematic” name: the Yacht Club.

“I found the name to be problematic,” Taylor Novick-Finder told KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz Show. “Yachting definitely denotes a very elitist and wealthy sport that is only enjoyed by a few people, and often it’s white people. And often yacht clubs are pretty exclusionary…”

Though the club in question would not be exclusionary &#8212 any student can join a student club &#8212 Novick-Finder argued the club did not promote a social justice cause that he can get behind and acknowledges he took a political stance in denying this club.

“In my opinion, a student organization or club is most effective when it has a social justice responsibility component…” Novick-Finder acknowledged, arguing people find the noun “yacht” to be offensive.

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What isn’t offensive? The “Stich n’ B*tch” club, which is sanctioned by the Pitzer College student government.

“I think the context in which [the language] is used, is appropriate,” he explained.

But it wasn’t just Novick-Finder who wasn’t happy with the Yacht Club.

Novick-Finder claimed some of his student senator colleagues “…were saying they felt uncomfortable as students of color for a group of only Juniors and Seniors who are all white to start a yachting club that they found was exclusionary and not accessible to them.”

What’s more exclusionary: a yacht club literally anyone can join, or a college campus that costs over $60,000 a year in tuition plus room and board fees?

Now, it’s fair to note that Novick-Finder claims the Yacht Club members only created the club to make a point, apparently upset that a tattoo club was recently given funding so students can get tattoos, but he routinely explained to me in the interview that he had a problem with the lack of social justice component to the group. And I should note this student is clearly well-intentioned; he appears genuinely concerned and seems like a really great kid. But, I don’t think he understands why this kind of thinking is so troubling.

This entire episode is problematic and symptomatic of hypersensitive college students hell-bent on never being made to feel uncomfortable (even if the source of their discomfort isn’t based in any type of reality). But, even more dangerous, it’s another example of students feeling empowered to use their own ideological beliefs to stifle speech (and stop students from official recognition). Under his very own guidelines, one could see how they could go further and stop political organizations from forming. Is this the kind of behavior we want to teach our students is acceptable?