Season’s Greetings! As 2023 comes to a close, we are grateful for the incredible community we share at Brown and for the feigned ignorance of our very own president, Christina Paxson. Thank you for your continued dedication to constructing hideous campus buildings and accepting questionable university funding. To show our gratitude, let us offer you and all the other hardworking figureheads five holiday gifts.
Across the country, you and your colleagues are floundering, shocking us with your inability to do “everything we would like to do,” such as stop profiting from genocide, or protecting students from violence and harassment. Chris (as her cronies friends call her) has shown time and time again that she will indeed say some fucked-up shit on the fly, run, and then cower in the most overt manner possible.
We are feeling insane levels of secondhand embarrassment for these girl-bosses-gone-wrong. That’s why we’re bringing you this handy gift guide for these PR-atrocities personified. That’s right – here are five must-haves for university presidents this holiday season!
1. A new publicist
Yikes! “Accidentally” just arrested 41 more students? Hmm, that might hurt your Alumni donations. Better minimize the press, and make sure there’s no photo op, wink. C-Pax and all these other university prezzies really need to be Queer-Eyed: it’s time for a complete overhaul, both physically and mentally. Someone (ideally a gay man with perfect hair) ought to be consulted before making each heinous decision that will leave you infamous. Before turning a university building built by enslaved peoples into a makeshift jail for your students, you’ll have a brand-spankin’new publicist to let you know that is definitely the wrong choice!
2. Public Speaking For Dummies
Oh boy! Did you – the head of an institution with a 6 billion dollar endowment that profits off of weapon manufacturers – just say you’re powerless at a vigil for one of your own students? Did you mess up some pronouns (“your” friend, no wait, “our” friend)? Or maybe, you got on live television for a congressional hearing and refused to say that calling for the genocide of Jews violates your university’s conduct code? Clearly, TAPS 0220 Persuasive Communication is not a prerequisite for heading an elite, multi-billion dollar corporation – whoops – university. Before you fumble your way into becoming yet another meme or the University of Pennsylvania, boy, do we have a book for you.
3. A keffiyeh (kuh-fiy-yeh)
It’s time to ditch that trademark coat! Red is soooo last month’s news cycle. If you’re not gonna make any material changes to your school that could contribute to a ceasefire in Gaza, why don’t you just lean into the performative like you usually do? Don your keffiyeh, queen!
4. Some light theoretical reading
This holiday season, blow the dust off of those university library collections and break out some Fa-la-la-la-la-la-Franz Fanon. Perhaps The Wretched of the Earth will warm your Scrooge-like heart. Pop on that nightcap and prepare to confront the past, present, and future of the long-standing Brown tradition of student resistance. And who needs three ghosts rattling chains when Fanon wrote, “The Last Shall Be First, the First Last.” No annoying orphans in this one, either. Move over, Dickens. There’s a new (old) parable about the message and birth of a poor, unhoused Palestinian.
5. A divestment proposal
Don’t worry, girly pop, you don’t have to lift a finger! We’ve got you covered with your very own divestment proposal. That’s what happens when you listen to your students. All that’s left is to bring it before the corporation, join the right side of history, and save face like the figurehead you are.
And if none of these tickle your fancy, a Temu rose toy never hurts!