Atlanta
Early this week, students and employees of Emory University walked onto campus and found walkways filled with numerous chalked messages supporting Donald Trump. Most simply stated “Trump 2016,” but at least one exuberantly declared “Accept the Inevitable, Trump 2016.” Anyone who steps foot on a college campus these days is used to the ubiquitous chalked sidewalks, usually filled with announcements of meetings, events, and affirmations of political and social causes: “National Coming-Out Week,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “Israel = Apartheid.”
Few people pay much attention and, particularly in Atlanta, the frequent rain showers of the spring wash away the messages within a few days. Emory is a typical elite university – both its student body and faculty lean to the political left – and rhetoric about “inclusion” and “diversity” is ubiquitous, although ideological diversity is rarely intended. Last fall, following the “Black Lives Matter” zeitgeist, African-American students briefly blocked a road leading to Emory Hospital and demanded the university meet a number of demands designed to counter the supposed institutional racism that pervaded the campus.
The demands ranged from requiring courses to uproot the “poisonous tree” of the “Eurocentric curriculum” to banning Yik Yak, an anonymous social media platform filled with snark, gossip, and the occasional racist comment. Apart from complaints that current policies for adjudicating charges of violations of university policies are inadequate, most of the demands lacked any kind of evidence.
At least some were alarming. Citing the fact that “not all Black students are adequately prepared for the rigor of Emory University” and that a number are “unprepared for the academic rigor of Emory’s pre-professional academic track,” the students demanded special tutoring programs and facilities for minority students. Instead of asking whether Emory’s affirmative action policies on admission and financial aid were leading to the admission of students who struggled to succeed in a very competitive environment, the administration responded by pledging to create task forces and hold conversations to address the demands.
Just as alarming as the administrative refusal to defend the integrity of the institution they serve – and whose allegedly “racist” policies they have overseen for years – was the student rhetoric that accompanied the protests. As one black student put it: “We’re literally trying to survive the trauma of being on campus every day. It’s a traumatic experience.” The barrage of “micro-aggressions” they endured every day from their professors and fellow students had left some students in need of additional counselors in the Psychological Center specifically trained to work with black students. If an American institution of higher education, filled with left-wing faculty and administrators, trumpeting its significant percentage of minority and international students, its generous need-blind financial aid policies, and one of the highest percentages of minority faculty among elite institutions was a bastion of racism so severe that it psychologically disabled someone, perhaps they did need psychological aid.
Given that history, it was not a surprise that the Trump chalkings stirred outrage. Forty to fifty students marched on the administration building on Tuesday, March 22, chanting “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!” Leading the crowd into the building, sophomore Jonathan Peraza shouted: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.” Upstairs, they met with university President James Wagner, who refused to accede to their first demand, that he send out a university-wide e-mail denouncing Trump, but was moved by their expressed fear that they were not safe on campus because of the chalkings, which they believed were meant to intimidate. The following day Wagner did send out an e-mail to everyone on campus, affirming the “feelings and concern” of the protestors, noting that “Trump 2016” might be interpreted as intimidating, and filled with boilerplate about more process and more dialogue.
More ominously, he had promised the students that the university would review footage from security cameras to try to identify those who did the chalking and, if possible, bring them before the Conduct Council. (Already suffering acute embarrassment, the administration announced Thursday night that no one was identified and the investigation is ending.) There is a set of rules about chalking on campus, designed to regulate where messages can be left and in this instance they were not followed. But, students report that most chalkings are spontaneous and not done in accord with the regulations. While it is hard to see how writing “Trump 2016” in chalk could intimidate anyone, it is very easy to see just how intimidating this response is likely to be to any Trump supporter on campus. In fact, over the past years, it is conservative students who have endured efforts to intimidate them. Speakers ranging from David Horowitz to Ward Connerly have been shouted down.
What President Wagner and other administrators who praised the protestors’ actions did not do was to tell them firmly and succinctly that if they were intimidated by the thought that there might be a handful of Trump supporters on campus or that seeing a message of support for a man supported by millions of their fellow citizens left them scared or in fear of their safety they needed to grow up.
Just how out of touch these administrators are with the society in which they live is obvious by the response to the protest and Emory’s refusal to stand up to hysterical childishness. Virtually every story reporting on these events, from left-wing sites like Gawker to right-wing outlets like Powerline has ridiculed the “snowflakes” and “cry bullies” traumatized by the chalked name of a political candidate. Thousands of comments have poured scorn and derision on students so emotionally fragile that they need to suppress or drive off campus anyone daring to support Donald Trump. The Emory Wheel reported the sentiments of one protestor: “I’m supposed to feel comfortable and safe but this man is being supported by students on our campus and our administration shows that they, by their silence, support it as well … I don’t deserve to feel afraid at my school.” Another demanded a crackdown by faculty on student political expression: they were “supporting this rhetoric by not ending it.”
As someone who has taught at Emory for 45 years (and is retiring at the end of this semester), I know that most students have the emotional and intellectual resources to deal with political messages they find distasteful. Very few Emory students are Trump supporters and, I would guess, even fewer faculty members (I certainly am not.) Yet, it is a shame that the Emory administration has pandered to the most illiberal elements on the campus by trying to placate those who see little value in free speech. Such a course is not beneficial to the students involved or to Emory University.
Harvey Klehr, the Andrew W. Mellon professor of politics and history at Emory, is the author, most recently, of Secret Cables of the Comintern, 1933-1943.
