I should know by now not to brand the latest example of campus crybully whining and immaturity as the lowest point, because these students keep finding ways to go lower.
I originally thought we had jumped the shark of campus whining last December, when students at Lebanon Valley College demanded the administration change the name of the “Lynch Memorial Building” because of the word “lynch.”
As ludicrous as that demand was, it was soon surpassed in January when students at the University of Oregon decided Martin Luther King, Jr. — a man revered for his devotion to and sacrifices on behalf of civil rights — was not inclusive enough. They specifically objected to King’s famous quotation: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
The quote was hanging above the lobby at Oregon’s Erb Memorial Union. But because skin color was the only thing MLK referred to, students considered asking to remove it.
“Diversity is so much more than race,” one of the most special of special snowflakes told the student newspaper. “Obviously race still plays a big role. But there are people who identify differently in gender and all sorts of things like that.”
As ridiculous as that may sound, we’re still hitting new lows. Now students at Emory University are demanding “emergency counseling” after fellow students wrote “Trump 2016” in chalk around campus.
“It is clear to us that these statements are triggering for many of you,” said an email from the school’s student government association. “As a result, both College Council and the Student Government Association pledge to stand in solidarity with those communities who feel threatened by this incident and to help navigate the student body through it and the environment of distrust and unease it has created.”
Emory students protested outside the school president’s office, demanding he “decry” support for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump.
If “Trump 2016” is so triggering to today’s snowflakes that they need therapy, I suspect they will need to be committed into mental institutions if Trump becomes the Republican nominee (more so if he gets elected as president).
It’s chalk, people. It’s not Trump himself out to get you. It’s not even another human being out to get you. It’s a form of calcium carbonate. You draw things with it, sometimes in different colors. The only way chalk could really hurt you is if someone threw a chunk of it at you. But even the message itself was just a political exhortation to vote for someone.
Heaven forbid they ever go on Twitter.
Seriously, kids, grow up. You’re at college to learn how to be adults and live in the real world. The real world isn’t going to offer you counseling every time you disagree with someone. Buck up, buttercup.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
