SALVATION SPRINGS, Texas — Thanks to a bold marketing stroke, Salvation Springs College in Texas may solve its precarious financial future while simultaneously scoring a diplomatic coup with the government of Saudi Arabia.
Last week, college president Gretchen Pragmati announced that the small liberal arts college has offered to outsource a limited number of the kingdom’s legal beheadings, forced amputations and lashings.
If it goes through, the deal could forge stronger bonds between the two states that already share subtropical desert climates and a struggle against collapsing oil prices. A deal could also lead to a large increase in the number of Saudi students who pay the nearly $70,000 per year to attend the private college.
“This proposal could be the remaining missing piece for making SSC the go-to destination for Saudi students who want to study in the United States but keep some of the familiar comforts of home,” Pragmati told the Dandy Goat’s higher education and capital punishment correspondent Warren Hatchet. “Plus, it will neutralize some of the negative publicity associated with the Saudi judicial system.”
Pragmati says that if the plan moves forward, by as early as September the college could begin a six-month trial run of corporeal and capital punishments on the Campus Green, which excited students have already nicknamed “Lop Lop Square.”
Donating some harvested organs should garner favorable publicity and, according to reports, the iced corpses and severed limbs will command top dollar from an unnamed Dallas medical school eager to procure material for student dissection labs.
“We won’t be accused of leaving any meat on the bone,” Pragmati said.
SSC’s Board of Trustees has blessed the proposal, convinced that the notoriety, immediate financial gain and future donations by grateful Saudi alums will mollify a handful of squeamish faculty members.
Professor Caleb Crutchfield, responding to rumors about faculty misgivings, said, “We drew a line in the sand. No new staff hires. But given that the Saudis are covering all costs, we embraced this new revenue stream as a godsend.”
In an attempt to allay fears about complicity in morally questionable activity, Dean of Humanities Dr. David Sealy said, “Prior to transport here, each prisoner’s fate will have been legally sealed in-country. We’re only deriving the value added. A bonus is that our domestic students will learn that what is considered barbaric behavior by one person is viewed by another as a cherished cultural tradition and as such it merits respect.”
Student body president Will Gore is on board, having already scheduled a referendum to change the college’s mascot from the Fightin’ Prairie Dogs to the edgier Decapitators. Under a photo in the student newspaper featuring Gore sporting a new red and white checked Saudi scarf, he praised Pragmati’s proposal as “hands down, a no brainer.”
Professor Jane Greenwald, who welcomes the presence of more Saudi students on campus, objects to Riyadh’s prohibition on students registering for courses exposing them to what the Saudis have dubbed “barbaric foreign ideas” including ethics, feminist politics, comparative religion, Middle East politics, and even music. At a recent discussion of the plan, Greenwald asked, “Doesn’t our submission to this restriction make a mockery of our stated commitment to critical thinking and challenging prior assumptions, the hallmarks of a liberal arts education?”
Sealy responded, “It’s a small price to pay for this financial bonanza.”
When queried by ABC affiliate WFCC that the Department of Justice might take exception to the proposal, college spokesperson Herb Fiddle replied, “U.S. officials never utter a word of objection about Saudi Arabia’s internal practices or support for terrorist groups in the Middle East.”
Fiddle went on, “Given U.S. droning of civilians abroad, secret CIA torture centers and support for brutal dictatorships, we’re confident Washington will adopt a ‘Who Are We to Judge’ posture.”
According to sources, similar hands-off sentiment has been voiced by Texas officials, a state that executes more people than the rest of the country combined and where the death penalty enjoys wide support.
Finally, in response to Professor Greenwald’s accusation that SSC is “pimping for petrodollars,” President Pragmati replied, “I’m eager to hear other proposals, provided they also kill two birds with one stone. Barring that, other colleges talk the talk, we chop the chop.”