Anyone who has ever been on a liberal college campus knows that it is not a welcoming place towards conservatives. Professors routinely tout their leftist political views, curriculums are smeared with revisionist history, and conservative speech is routinely suppressed. Conservative groups or speakers on campus are usually frowned upon or outright rejected by university administrators as well.
The mistreatment of college conservatives is rampant. According to The Minnesota Republic, a student at the University of Minnesota lost her job as a student community advisor because her performance review showed that she “failed to adequately promote social justice principles,” even though her review showed high marks for “creating a positive learning environment.” Another case was reported by The Daily Caller, where the Santa Clara University student senate rejected a petition to form a campus chapter of conservative activism group Turning Point USA because liberals would feel “unsafe.” Apparently, safe spaces only apply to liberals.
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But the election of President Donald Trump has, arguably, caused the Left to become apoplectic in unprecedented ways, and this has been no different on college campuses. According to Campus Reform, two Clemson professors launched a hunger strike to protest Trump’s executive order imposing a refugee moratorium to “express solidarity with those… who will be forced to go hungry because they will not be accepted as refugees into the United States.” Campus Reform also reported that after Trump’s election, Saint Joseph University’s Dr. David Parry told students that he has no sympathy for “struggling white voters” and that “people are going to die because of what happened.”
But possibly the most extreme reaction on a university campus to Trump’s election was last week’s riot at University of California, Berkeley, against Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos was scheduled to speak on campus and the Left reacted with violence. Fires were set, a woman with a “Make America Great Again” hat was pepper-sprayed, and people were assaulted by mobs. Yiannopoulos was escorted off the UC Berkeley campus by his security team.
Many thought that this riot was conducted by outside groups, but PJ Media reported that a campus staffer is now being investigated for participation. The report stated that internet sleuth “Pave Darker” was able to link a Twitter account under the name “Eugene V. Dabs,” which boasted about beating a Trump/Milo supporter, to Ian Dabney Miller, a UC Berkeley employee. “Pave Darker” took screenshots of a tweet from Miller that read, “hey come get your boy, he got ROCKED #miloatcal” next to a picture of an injured man lying on the ground.
The hostilities towards conservatives at colleges need to end. While colleges can be a great place to learn and grow, the entrenched adverse attitude toward differing views keeps students immature and breeds intolerance, and unless this stops, colleges will lose sight of their true purpose: to teach students how to think for themselves.
