Annual campus “Speedo Hike” canceled because it might upset sedentary people

It’s a little less fun to attend college these days since campus lunacy has taken over and caused everyone to lose their minds. Its most recent victim is the cancellation of the Claremont Colleges annual hike because it might trigger body issues in people whose physique implies a more sedentary, indoor lifestyle.

The school’s outdoor club, On the Loose (OTL), canceled what was known as the Speedo Hike, where hundreds of students would show up in speedos and climb nearby Mount Baldy. It was one of the most popular events on campus each year for obvious reasons. But because the attire — which is not required, by the way — could potentially exclude unfit individuals or even those with religious clothing requirements, it had to go.

OTL explained the decision on their Facebook page:

By having the Speedo Hike as our official welcome event each year, we unintentionally sent the message that to participate in OTL, you must be fit and comfortable with your body image. The name “Speedo” itself inherently implies bro-iness. OTL is so much more than just that, but many potentially interested students get turned off to our club each year because of Speedo Hike.

Bro-iness? What does that even mean? That’s such a new word it’s not even listed on Urban Dictionary.

This foolishness received the seal of approval from a staff member of the Outdoor Education Center, Clarissa Worcester, who said:

[T]he publicity/legacy surrounding that of the speedo hike is immediately and inextricably ostracizing. Not to mention how it directly excludes individuals with religious dressing practices. No matter what work you do, the “speedo hike” will manifest itself as OTL taking out and funding a group of students that is nearly guaranteed to be almost exclusively outdoor-experienced, fit, and heavily swayed in the direction of outdoor—and otherwise—privilege that OTL is trying to work against. OTL’s decision to not put many folks’ organizational effort and time into an event that is widely associated with bodily shaming/exclusion just seems to make a lot of sense.

Insanity, on the other hand, is easily definable and found in most dictionaries.

Though there are plenty of campus crybabies who probably love that this healthy, though silly as it may be, event is nixed, other students of the sane variety spoke out against its cancellation, including Pomona student Jeremy Snyder. He wrote to the Claremont Independent, “OTL should strive to serve as many people from as many backgrounds as possible, but this should be an additive process, not a reductive one.”

“If the hike is canceled, every individual and group that would have opted not to participate will stay on campus that Saturday just the same. The sheer absence of the Speedo Hike will not propel them outdoors, so it is not productive to that end,” he added. “What does change, however, is that now every person who would have partaken—for whom the speedo hike could have been a fun, challenging, and socially transformative experience as it was for my friends and I—will now spend their Saturday on campus as well, sedentary.”

Student Samuel Breslow stated, “I think it’s important to note that wearing a speedo was not a requirement for participation in the speedo hike. I can also speak to it from personal experience: I decided to keep my clothes on (for comfort/in order to lessen the sunburn), and no one ever pressured me in the slightest to take them off.”

In other words, the event was fun for everyone involved and allowed anyone to participate. The only exclusivity being practiced is by OTL who has now excluded EVERYONE. That’s liberal fairness for you!

H/T National Review