Musk later tweeted: “Once I get to Mars, I’ll show them.”
Photo by Jay Noonan
Last week, UCSD’s college naming committee released their bi-weekly transparency report detailing polling data of names for Sixth College, in which the popular candidate “Elon Musk College” was struck from the list. In the transcript, the review board had deemed Elon Musk’s achievements “not controversial enough based on the set of arbitrary questions the board has drafted.”
“Heroes are dead,” said Chancellor Khosla when asked about the review process. “We believe that our campus should be up to date with the trends of our modern society. It is our opinion that Elon Musk does not exemplify the tenants of the 21st-century scholar: being accused and/or convicted of racism, sexism, or fraud; while also refusing to acknowledge wrongdoings and plowing through with confidence.”
“Some people say we’ve made some real progress with naming Eleanor Roosevelt College after a woman,” claimed one source, who wished to be anonymous. “But I think we need to balance that out with more morally ambiguous figures, such as Earl Warren or Theodore Seuss Geisel.”
The review board is composed of four ethics professors from UC San Diego, all of whom are appointed by the Chancellor. “Before we could determine if Elon Musk was a suitable candidate, we had to establish what it means to be influential in a postmodern world,” stated Professor Rafael Higgins-Baez, one of the board members of the college naming committee. “Our definition isn’t complete yet, but we have determined that to be truly influential in this era, one must be revered as a God by half of the population, and be irredeemably vilified by the other. We’ll have more information by the end of 2021 when our first draft will be released.” When asked about their opinion on the matter, an anonymous student secretary said, “I don’t care about what’s happening, I’m just glad the meeting is over. It’s hell being with these people.”
The public report included the 300-word preface written by the board explaining their reasoning behind striking Musk’s candidacy. According to the document, Elon Musk received ‘ambiguous’ points for “being white, male, and attempting to launch Tesla’s stocks at $420 per share.” However, due to the “lack of major racist or sexist actions during his career as CEO,” and for releasing a musical track with the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Musk was placed on the “chaotic good” spectrum of the rating system, thus making him ineligible as a name for a UCSD college.
“If Musk had admitted that the stock move was a way to lower his income another tax bracket, he would’ve probably got more chaotic evil points,” claimed review board member Professor Dirk Van-Dyck, “but he didn’t, so we had to chalk up altruism points for ‘wealthy CEO making company accessible to the middle class’”
As of today, the search for Sixth College’s new title continues. “At this point, we may just turn to Wikipedia’s ‘Top 10 Most Controversial People,’” remarked the review committee. “We’re currently considering Kanye West as a strong candidate.”
