[ORDER SOLUTION] Desegregation at Clemson
Mapping the Controversy PromptBasicsIn this assignment, you will trace the argument around a controversial issue that affects or has affected the Clemson community; or another community which you have received permission from me to write on. You will not take a position on the issue at this time–that’s the next major assignment. Instead, you’ll conduct research on the historical conversation about a controversial issue to determine who the stakeholders are and what kinds of arguments they made/are making. What counts as “historical” will depend on your focus. If you are interested in arguments about desegregation at Clemson, for example, you’d need to look back at documents (for example, old issues of The Tiger in Tigerprints) from around 1963. If you are interested in arguments about development in the surrounding community, you don’t have to go as far back; you could instead focus on debates around particular developments and construction projects. The controversy you choose can build on what you wrote about in the Landmark Analysis, but it does not have to.What is a controversial issue?For our purposes, a controversial issue is an issue of public concern on which people disagree. To avoid going too broad, it can be helpful to frame your controversy as a question: for example, you could research something like “should Clemson build more bike lanes?” or “How can Clemson support green transportation?” rather than just “Clemson traffic.” A controversy should have more than two sides. Even if it looks like there are only two sides–for example, “yes, we should build more bike lanes” and “no, we shouldn’t”–there are probably more nuanced versions of each position to examine.For our purposes, the positions on this controversy do not all have to be what we would consider “reasonable” or well-argued. For example, if you are researching the debate about desegregation at Clemson, you are going to read some morally repugnant arguments. But, unfortunately, public discourse is not always reasonable, and identifying the issues in these debates–the problematic assumptions and values that they espouse–can help us better understand the stakes of these controversial issues.
