Across the country, college campuses are abandoning their purpose of education and expanding the minds of young people in favor of “safe spaces” and witch hunts. And some students are tired of being silent.
Voices of dissent to this politically correct culture began popping up sporadically several weeks ago, before the campuses of Yale and the University of Missouri (and many more since) became engulfed in protests, in the area of anti-male campus sexual assault activism. In mid-October, George Lawlor of the University of Warwick refused to attend a “consent class” because, as he put it, he didn’t need to “be taught not to be a rapist.”
“That much comes naturally to me, as I am sure it does to the overwhelming majority of people you and I know,” Lowler wrote in his school newspaper. “Brand me a bigot, a misogynist, a rape apologist, I don’t care. I stand by that.”
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Lowler was followed by a female pre-med student in California who wrote a response to “rape culture” hysteria in her public health class. She was lucky in that the person who graded her assignment actually welcomed her countercultural viewpoint, unlike so many others on college campuses and in the media who define any dissent as being “pro-rape” or “rape apologia.”
Another student, Thomas Briggs of the College of William and Mary, penned his own opposition to the hysteria, suggesting that what we face in America is a “hookup culture” and nothing like the “rape culture” occurring in the Middle East (despite what Ms. Magazine thinks).
While it took so long for students to begin speaking out against the suggestion of a “rape culture” — the answer to which has been creating kangaroo courts to oversee witch hunts against innocent young men — opposition to the current campus protests has been swifter.
Early Friday morning, the editorial board of a Claremont McKenna student newspaper penned an op-ed saying they “are no longer afraid to be voices of dissent” and condemned the school’s administrators, protesters and even themselves for the current situation.
A University of Missouri student, Ian Paris, wrote his own op-ed for The College Fix about how he and his friends had until now been “afraid to disagree with other students.”
“The University of Missouri police department sent an email urging students to report offensive or hurtful speech — not because it is illegal — but so the Office of Student Conduct could take disciplinary action against these students,” Paris wrote. “Several of us are afraid to disagree with other students, who in turn may report us to the authorities so we can be ‘dealt with.’ Many students have told me they are also afraid to speak out against the protest narrative, afraid they will be called ‘racist’ and become campus pariahs.”
Make no mistake — these protests are not about actual violence or racism, but “microagressions” that have been elevated to the level of violence or racism. As I argued in my column, these students seem to be looking to be part of a movement like that which occurred in the 1950s and 60s, except the problems of those decades do not exist today, and so perceived slights need to be elevated.
The administrators and students who give in to the protesters are seen as heroes and protected, anyone who tries to speak out against their demands and accusations is labeled as racist, sexist or even a “rape apologist.” Honest dialogue, reason and logic are all lost in favor of hysteria.
At least we can take comfort in knowing there are still some students on these campuses who believe in critical thought, facts and free speech.
