A Confederate monument on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was knocked down by student protesters on Monday.
Videos show protesters using ropes to topple the statue as the crowd screams and chants slogans such as “hey, hey, ho, ho, these racist statues have got to go” and “cops go home!”
The impromptu removal of Silent Sam is the latest in a long line of statues associated with slavery to be removed from public areas. What makes this particular incident shocking, however, is the violent destruction of property conducted by students on their own campus.
Much of the recent violence on college campuses has been chalked up to a few bad actors or off-campus, antifa-like groups. In this case, the out-of-hand protest was led by UNC students themselves.
Whether you’re in favor of keeping Confederate statues on campus or taking them down, the real story is that students have reached a point where they believe nonviolent protest isn’t enough — and this is very dangerous both to academia and democracy as a whole.
The university was created for the thinking man, not the brutish thug. Yet today, it seems that classrooms and environments surrounding them are calling for resistance “by any means necessary.”
Gone are the days where professors would teach students about the rich history of nonviolent protest in the traditions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Instead, colleges stir the pot by offering courses in “White Racism” and “Trump: Impeachment, Removal or Conviction.”
If you don’t believe that these courses spur on crazed protests and the violent destruction of property, then consider the 17 anonymous UNC professors who vowed to tear down Silent Sam themselves. These professors set the tone on campus, and the tone is one of silencing viewpoints outside of the academic left, no matter what the cost, breaking laws and destroying property included.
University presidents, academic deans, and lawmakers must reassess what is being taught in the classroom before an entire generation graduates with the notion that violence is the answer to controversial and contrarian views. America has a rich tradition of free speech and robust discourse, but the mob mentality on campus is threatening it.
If passionate yet civil debate can’t exist at the university level, one must ask if it has a place at all in society at large. If the university is no longer a home for civil discourse, then our students are being led astray and our democracy is weaker for it.
