This past month, the President of the University of Missouri, Tim Wolfe, resigned. Also, Chancellor, R. Bowen Lofting, announced his intentions to step down at the end of the year. This, after students protested “racism” on campus. National Public Radio (NPR) reported that students regarded it as a “surprising David-and-Goliath-type victory”.
Are they kidding! It was more like Goliath versus Goliath, and the winner was, — well, — Goliath! Modern academia today is largely liberal. Some surveys peg the percentage of professors who describe themselves as “liberal” at 72%. In the more elite universities, it is even higher at 87%. Just so we can get the context here, — the administrators are liberal, the professors are liberal, and the students are mostly liberal. This wasn’t, — “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” This was, — “Let’s go through the battlefield and shoot our wounded.” I chuckled as I read an article by Jonah Goldberg as he pointed out that everybody was so open minded that their brains fell out.
Academic freedom does not equal academic integrity. I wonder what the intellectual brain trust of the University thought as they were faced with a bunch of wild eyed, screaming anarchists of their own making. Evidently, they did not know what to think since their leadership quit, or will quit.
More disturbing were the protests at other universities around the country and comments by protest leaders. A group that calls itself the African Black Coalition posted an op-ed, “A New Constitution or the Bullet.” The group originated in 2003 in the University of California system. Below are quotes from the op-ed.
Douglas Ernst in his WND article “Black student group vows bloodshed over Constitution” states, “I have come to realize that the Constitution is the root of virtually all our problems in America. In order to understand the injustices against Black folks in United States, we must look back to its foundation. The U.S. is a country that was founded on slavery, genocide, rape, and white-male patriarchy, the group wrote. A body cannot be separated from its head and remain living. The Constitution and all the evil that it allows to be perpetuated are the head of White America, or more so corrupt America. Racist America. … A Constitution written by only white men will never serve the interests of black people. The Constitution was written for the ruling class of white men which constructed whiteness to be more valuable than any other race.”
Wow! There you go! America was founded on “slavery, genocide, rape, and white patriarchy.” I wonder what my great grandfather, who fought in 17 major battles of the Civil War for the Union’s 5th Wisconsin, — including Gettysburg, — would have to say to that one? And if you don’t agree with this group, a bullet for you! Is this different from Murat or Robespierre (French Revolution), that if you did not agree with the Jacobins, it was “off with your head?” The only reason that this passes as “acceptable rhetoric” is that this group considers themselves “oppressed.” Never mind that it was these founding documents, written a century prior to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, that set in motion the idea of universal equality under the law. Jefferson, contrary to modern propaganda, was a promoter of emancipation. In writing the Declaration of Independence he included, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal —.” (Dave Barton does a great job of exploding the modern myths of Jefferson in ‘The Jefferson Lies’, copyright 2012.) The op-ed goes on to blatantly call for bloodshed if demands are not met.
Douglas Ernst continues, “Do we not have the right to abolish the laws that oppress us? It is time to claim the Declaration of Independence and apply it to our struggle as colonized black people in America. The United States has us; it is time we demand a new constitution or tell America that she will get the bullet. White supremacy’s bullets are killing black people every day. If America does not protect us, then it is our human right to defend ourselves by any means necessary. It is our human right to overthrow a government that has been destructive to our people. This is why we must rise up and let all people come together and write a new constitution to serve ALL people. … We must pick up where the Black Panthers left off and declare a new constitution or it will be the bullet.”
Adding to this was the “Million Student March.” On November 12, students at a number of universities staged a walkout demanding free university education. The coalition’s Facebook page said, “The United States is the richest country in the world, yet students have to take on crippling debt in order to get a college education. We need change and change starts in the streets when people demand it.”
Of course, nothing is free, and we are the most indebted nation in world history.
Notice that in all cases there is a call for people to go to the streets, and make demands. In the first case, violence is advocated. The mob even turned on its high priests, — university administrators, — and sent them running. As with the French Revolution, the “collective” is all that matters, and the “rights of the individual” outlined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution should be destroyed. Some are advocating elimination of the 1st Amendment, and free speech. So, this is the student’s reasoning, — “We need to eliminate racism and hate speech, even if it requires violence.” The “collective” is restless and individual rights are under attack. Academia has fostered this, and actively promoted it. Now, when it turns on them, they acquiesce.
How is this for a quote by an educator, “Revere Superintendent Dianne Kelly says the (school) district believes in freedom of speech, but cannot support what she calls ‘insensitive language’?” The “insensitive language” referred to here was a political statement on illegal immigration and its implication on a local election. The saddest part of this is that we, as citizens, are funding this through our tax dollars. Nothing like funding our own revolution!
The idea that one is for ‘free speech,’ but speech cannot offend anyone is absurd on its face. It is meant to stymie debate, and is nothing more than a bullying tactic by liberal academia to quiet descent. Yes, you can have an opposing opinion, just keep it to yourself. And if you don’t, we have the mob to deal with you. We will make your life miserable. (Note to self: Simply calling someone hateful does not make it so!) The 1st Amendment was not put there to protect profanity, pornography, or verbal assault. It was specifically added to protect political debate, the right to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances — certainly not to protect an unruly mob advocating violence. That was the historical context under which it was written.
Liberal fascism began with the guillotine in the French Revolution. It was used by its leaders as a deterrent to descent. What we are experiencing today is only different by degrees. To silence someone through intimidation is to guillotine their opinions and speech. It has the same effect. From ‘free speech zones’ to ‘censorship,’ the PC movement in academia is looking more like modern liberal fascism, rather than advocates of liberal arts. Just who is being intolerant and hateful here?
