Lefties: targets of an unaddressed bias

Lefties: targets of an unaddressed bias

Deliberate repression causes undue frustration in classes, labs,
workplace

By Brendan Whyte

Recent articles on alleged discrimination by the Reserve Officer
Training Corps (ROTC), campus admissions and faculty hiring have
caused a little controversy, but I would like to bring to you a
case of deliberate bias against 10 percent of all students AND
faculty here. It is handedness-ism.

After coming to America, I thought the political-correctness
brigade would have eliminated the deliberate and systematic
discrimination against we, the left-handed minority. But
apparently, America is not the bastion of freedom it touts itself
to be.

I first noticed the hatred the majority has for us when I
arrived at my first class. Instead of chairs and desks, as in the
boardrooms and meeting rooms, we are forced to sit in grade school
chairs with only large armrests on which to write.

Not only this, but all the chairs in most classrooms are right
armrest-enlarged, meaning that as a lefty, I have to swipe a second
seat to position its armrest beneath my left hand, so that I can
take notes. The fact that the chairs have built-in rests means I
cannot turn the chair sideways and write with the armrest in front
of me, like a desk.

The chairs are deliberately designed to frustrate my natural
writing and note-taking potential. In those classrooms with chairs
fixed to the floor, the left aisle may be reserved for lefties,
with left armrests. We make up 10 percent of the population, yet
each row is 12, 15 or 20 seats wide, with only one seat for
lefties.

In addition, we are consigned to a particular side of the room,
unable to sit next to people we want, which enforces separation
from our friends and breaks the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights
(to which the United States is a signatory) by denying us freedom
of association.

Each lefty is banished to a row end, unable to have another
lefty beside him, and often on the opposite side of the room from
the lectern and the professor, so that it may be difficult to
hear.

If the front few rows have their seats filled by the time I
arrive, I am consigned to the back of the room, out of earshot of
the lesson and among the "unruly students," despite a large vacancy
rate of seats for righties closer in. I may be bunched with the
back-row mob by the lecturer purely because of my vicinity to them,
and so downgraded if their behavior is poor, all because there was
no seat from which I could take notes nearer the front of the
room.

Technology is also denied us. The numeric keypads are on the
right-hand side of the computer keyboards. Thus, to enter screeds
of data, as I must do for many classes, I have to use the slow,
mistake-prone upper row of numbers on the main board. If I try to
move my seat so as to use the numeric pad, I get abused by the guy
next to me who thinks I am making a move on him. If I attempt to
move the keyboard to the left, I come up against its security
cable, and the cable usually wins that fight (or sets off an alarm
if I win, getting me kicked out of the lab).

When I go to lunch, the teller machines and the vending machines
have their buttons on the right. Coin slots are always on the wrong
side of the machines. If I get a job in Lu Valle or a campus shop,
the cash register is to the right of where I stand behind the
counter, which makes ringing up purchases slower and more
error-ridden. I lose promotional chances because I am slower to use
this prejudiced machinery.

Most toilet levers are on the left, forcing me to sully my
eating hand to maintain sanitation.

So, where are the editorials damning the university for its
discrimination to us beleaguered lefties? Or are we yet another
faceless, campaign-less minority forced to endure repression
because we are not dark-skinned enough or penis-less enough to
provoke the sympathy you attempt to dredge for other, more visible,
minorities?

Either embrace freedom from repression for all, or for none, but
do not hide us under a mat while you promote your schemes for the
"politically correct" minorities. We lefties will not be mocked by
your self-RIGHTeousness much longer!

Whyte is a graduate student in geography.

After coming to America, I thought the political-correctness
brigade would have eliminated the deliberate and systematic
discrimination against we, the left-handed minority.

So, where are the editorials damning the university for its
discrimination to us beleaguered lefties?

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