The chapter of the Young America’s Foundation at George Washington University is currently threatened with a loss of funding for refusing to attend mandatory LGBT sensitivity training. The student government at GWU recently made this a requirement for all student leaders, and YAF is being called hateful for objecting. According to Allied in Pride, the school’s LGBT student group, this merely scratches the surface of the YAF chapter’s crimes. “Their refusal to use preferred gender pronouns should be considered an act of violence and a violation of the non-discrimination clause required in all GW student organizations’ Constitutions,” Allied in Pride wrote on their Facebook page.
That college leftists continue to harass conservative groups, exhibit a fondness for Maoist reeducation programs, and equate pronouns with violence is not surprising. But the degree to which campuses continue moving leftward still finds new ways to surprise. “Regardless of your views on LGBT people, LGBT people exist,” student Alex Pollock told the GWU Hatchet. “It should be mandatory from a sensitivity perspective.” What’s notable about this is that Pollock happens to be the president of the GWU College Republicans, and even he favors mandatory sensitivity training. (When the revolution comes, Comrade Pollock can take some small measure of comfort in the fact he’s less likely to be first up against the wall.)
If conservatives on campus have it coming, students of any other ideological stripe will find campuses a safe and welcoming space for their ideas—including those advocating global jihad. Conservative provocateur James O’Keefe just released another undercover video, in which an assistant dean at Cornell advises an undercover journalist on how to start and fund a pro-ISIS club on campus. After being told that they would like to bring an ISIS “freedom fighter” to campus for a “training camp,” the dean calmly responds, “The university is not going to look at different groups and say you are not allowed to support that group because we don’t believe in them or something like that. . . . The university wants the entire community to understand what’s going on in all parts of the world.”
In fact, campus culture has gotten so left-wing that mainstream liberals are concerned. On March 21, the New York Times published an essay by Judith Shulevitz, “In College and Hiding From Scary Ideas,” recounting the number of draconian ways in which colleges are stifling debates that might be “triggering” the identity-politics-über-alles crowd. And last week, an anonymous blog post by an avowedly leftist professor made the rounds on social media. “Personally, liberal students scare the s—t out of me,” the professor wrote. “All it takes is one slip—not even an outright challenging of their beliefs, but even momentarily exposing them to any uncomfortable thought or imagery—and that’s it, your classroom is triggering, you are insensitive, kids are bringing mattresses to your office hours and there’s a Twitter petition out demanding you chop off your hand in repentance.”
That seems like hyperbole. Interested students should inquire with the dean about the possibility of an ISIS training camp. Learning to chop off hands should be a key part of this exciting opportunity for cultural exchange.
