Slavery has always been unconstitutional in Mississippi, and Southern Baptists have always been apologizing for supporting it in the first place. (Class of 2016, #38)

Slavery has been unconstitutional in Mississippi since 1865 when the 13th Amendment was ratified. Mississippi approved the amendment in 1995 (although that decision wasn’t sent to the U.S. Archivist until 2013), but this had no effect upon the constitutionality of slavery in Mississippi. A basic civics lesson would seem to be in order for the Mindset brain trust.

Southern Baptists did pass a resolution apologizing for their past support of slavery in 1995 (which is different than “always have been apologizing.”)

As with many Mindset List items, the primary problem with this one is not its factual accuracy—although it’s amazing how the List can screw up even the simplest facts in the interest of including the words “always been”—but that it claims that obscure events that happened when the class in question were babies shape its “mindset.”

Their folks have never gazed with pride on a new set of bound encyclopedias on the bookshelf.  (Class of 2016, #18)

The final edition of Encyclopedia Britannica was published in 2010 and the print version of that encyclopedia wasn’t discontinued until 2012. World Book Encyclopedia is still available as bound volumes.

Bound encyclopedias were common in the 1970s and 1980s when the parents of the Class of 2016 were growing up, thus many of them likely had bound encyclopedias on their bookshelf.

Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive. (Class of 2014, #27)

CD-ROM drives were replaced by DVD-ROM drives in the early 2000s. When the Class of 2014 were high school sophomores, Apple began selling MacBook Airs with no optical drives of any kind.

They should keep their eyes open for Justin Bieber or Dakota Fanning at freshman orientation. (Class of 2016, #1)

Dakota Fanning was a freshman at New York University during the 2011-12 academic year. She is part of the Class of 2015.

Justin Bieber is not currently attending college.

Ketchup has always been a vegetable. (Class of 2003, #36)

In 1981, the USDA proposed reclassifying ketchup as a vegetable in subsidized school lunch program requirements. The proposal was criticized and ridiculed. It was never enacted. Thus, ketchup was never a vegetable for the Class of 2003.

Adams, Cecil. 2004. “Did the Reagan-era USDA really classify ketchup as a vegetable?” The Straight Dope, July 16.

Major League Baseball has never had fewer than three divisions and never lacked a wild card entry in the playoffs. (Class of 2015, #61)

Major League Baseball went to four divisions in 1969, around a quarter of a century before the Class of 2015 was born. Since 1994, there have been six divisions. MLB has never had just three divisions.

It just isn’t that difficult to look this stuff up.

There has always been football in Jacksonville but never in Los Angeles. (Class of 2016, #14)

This will be a surprise to members of the Class of 2016 matriculating at UCLA or USC.

Buffy has always been meeting her obligations to hunt down Lothos and the other blood-suckers at Hemery High. (Class 2014, #6)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer attended Hemery High in her eponymous film, which was released in 1992, when much of the Class of 2014 was born. That film ends with her killing Lothos.

Members of the Class of 2014 may have watched the Buffy the Vampire TV series, which ended production when they were around 11 years old. In that show Buffy neither fought Lothos or attended Hemery High. She was a student at Sunnydale High, graduated, and then matriculated at UC-Sunnydale.

This is a mistake that illustrates the slapdash mindlessness of the Mindset List. If something happened in the class’s assigned birth year, it has “always” been happening—even if it stopped happening!

All that matters is that the Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie came out in in 1992. Have members of the class watched the film? Or the TV show? Did they like either one of them? Is either one a “cultural touchstone”? Could Ron Nief or Tom McBride have bothered to talk to some members of the class about these questions? Or survey them? Could they have bothered to watch the movie or the TV show? Or read something about them? Or have someone fact check their list? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you don’t know the Mindset List.

Clarence Thomas has always sat on the Supreme Court. (Class of 2012, #22)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has always sat on the Supreme Court. (Class of 2014, #67)

Stephen Breyer has always been an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. (Class of 2016, #36)

An August 2012 poll found that two-thirds of Americans couldn’t name any Supreme Court Justices. Sixteen percent of respondents named Clarence Thomas and 13% named Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Stephen Breyer is the most obscure Justice; only 3% of respondents named him.

Cultural touchstones? Not so much.

Eder, Steve. 2012. “Most Americans Can’t Name a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Survey Says.” Wall Street Journal Law Blog, Aug. 20.

There have always been red M&Ms, and blue ones are not new. What do you mean there used to be beige ones? (Class of 2002, #17)

There have always been blue M&Ms, but no tan ones. (Class of 2016, #30)

The Mindset List was originally intended as a “witty [sic] way of saying to faculty colleagues ‘watch your references,'” no doubt to avoid situations like this:

Old, out-of-touch professor: Maybe it will help if you think of the protons as tan M&Ms and the neutrons as the new blue M&Ms.

(Confused murmuring)

Professor: What’s wrong?

Student #1: What’s a tan M&M?

Professor: It’s one of the five M&M colors. It comes in every bag.

Student #2: I’ve never seen a tan M&M.

Professor: I know I’ve seen them.

Student #3: There have “never” been tan M&Ms!

Student #4: And there have “always” been blue M&Ms!!

Professor: You don’t know what you’re talking about!!!

Student #5: You just don’t understand our cultural touchstones!

(Class erupts into angry shouting and professor runs out the door.)