Free Speech? Not on College Campuses.

First, a warning.  Someone out there might be offended by my blog this week.  (I’m sure I offend at least someone with my blog every week, especially if you’re a liberal.)  But seriously, this week, the campus thought police might well be listening, and determined to protect sensitive ears and minds from unpleasant thoughts or insensitive language.  I might be called a “hater.”

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What the heck am I talking about?  Well, college used to be a place for relatively young minds to explore a broad range of ideas. Maybe away from home for the first time; out of the nest; a brave new world out there.  Of course the goal at the end of the four year journey was a job; maybe a family of your own; responsibilities.  But college was a time to explore what you really thought about things; the way they are; the way they ought to be.  (And of course there are the parties.)

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So much for a diversity of ideas on college campuses nowadays.  Kirsten Powers, a self-admitted liberal Democrat, even though she’s a commentator on the FOX News Channel, has just released a book called “The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech.”  Although I haven’t yet read the book, I understand it’s filled with examples of her premise that on college campuses in America, the Left is engaged in an orchestrated campaign to delegitimize and demonize opposition (conservative) thought.  Conservatives are routinely silenced with charges that they are racist, homophobic, misogynistic, etc.

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Conservative commencement speakers are becoming rarer and rarer.  They are protested, ridiculed, and often disinvited.  If they actually show, they are heckled or shouted down, or both.  Condoleezza Rice was protested and ultimately pulled out of speaking at Rutgers.  A speech by Karl Rove was disrupted by protesters at U Mass.  Rand Paul got the same treatment at Howard University.  Former Bush Trade Representatives Robert Zoellick had to withdraw as commencement speaker at Swarthmore College due to liberal protesters, as did Ben Carson at Johns Hopkins.  In fact, a recent study showed that at the commencement of the top 100 universities in America, there were 69 speakers who were identifiably liberal, and only 12 who were identifiably conservative.  So much for balance.

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At the University of California Irvine, the liberal student council decided to ban the American flag from their office, because it allegedly was associated with “imperialism and colonialism”, and the flag’s presence in their office might be interpreted by someone as “hate speech.” What a bunch of ungrateful (as I write this it’s Memorial Day) little Marxists.  Further infuriating me is the fact that hundreds of leftist students and academics around the country signed a letter supporting the banning of the American flag, saying in the letter that “paraphernalia of nationalism (the American flag) is in fact often used to intimidate, and that the resolution (banning the flag) has drawn admiration nationally from much of the academic community.”  (That part of the academic community should be exiled to North Korea, or Iran, or Cuba, to experience first-hand what real intimidation is like.)

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At Modesto Junior College, also in California, political correctness stopped a student from handing out copies of the United States Constitution – on Constitution Day!  (Some of our Founders were slave owners you know.)  This suppression of the student’s free speech was so outrageous that the college agreed to pay $50,000 to the student to settle his lawsuit against the college.  Of course it’s our tax dollars that ultimately foot the bill for the school’s unconstitutional behavior.

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At California University Fullerton, some students committed the cardinal sin of wearing sombreros and Mexican garb at a “Taco Tuesday” recruiting event.  This of course couldn’t be tolerated; someone might be offended.  So the thought police at the college required the sorority responsible for the “Taco Tuesday” to be disciplined, and of course organize and pay for a workshop on cultural diversity.

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Rather than colleges being places where Constitutionally protected free expression and academic freedom are the norm, speech codes are now set up and rigorously enforced.  At George Washington University all the student leaders must attend LGBT sensitivity training so they can learn to “use proper gender pronouns.”  When a conservative campus group, the Young America’s Foundation, refused to be indoctrinated in this political correctness, the campus gay group, Allied for Pride, swept in and said the conservative group’s “refusal to use preferred gender pronouns should be considered AN ACT OF VIOLENCE.”  Oh, the horror.

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A University of Iowa art professor was censored and sanctioned for allegedly offending the sensitivities of its students with an art exhibit deemed to be too divisive.  The irony is that the exhibit was intended by the professor to be anti-racist.  It just goes to show that both students and teachers can be tripped up by the political correctness regime now determining what’s acceptable and what’s not on today’s college campuses.

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No discussion of the disappearance of free speech on college campuses would be complete without mentioning “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces.”

A “trigger warning” is typically a warning on a sign near the location where a speech is being made, alerting students that a speech is about to be given, (especially if it’s by a conservative speaker) which might express an idea that “could trigger an emotional response.”  We can’t have that now.

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A “safe space” is a location on campus where our pampered little students can stay away from the big bad wolf of free speech.  No unpleasant, politically incorrect speech there.  No Rush Limbaugh to scare you.  Or Dick Cheney.  Or Halliburton.  Or Koch Brothers.  Or the scary Condoleezza Rice.  And you can have your blankie and take a nap.  Just like kindergarten.

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Sorry if I offended anyone.  Actually, I’m not.  This pampered PC stuff is more than I can stomach, or fathom.  If this pampered PC mush had been around at the time of the Founding, we’d still be under British rule.  How the hell are we ever going to defeat ISIS?

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