Top 10 PC Campus Offenses of 2015
Any American who follows the news knows that it's been an historic
year for campus controversies. From the Mizzou protests to the
proliferation of safe spaces to mandatory sensitivity trainings, in 2015
the PC Police were more active than ever on our nation's campuses,
continuing their efforts to suffocate students' rights to free speech
and open debate.
Take a look back at some of this year's most egregious offenses and
share the list to help us spread the word and fight back in 2016.
10. American University Instructs Students to
Introduce Themselves by “Gender Pronoun” at Orientation, UTK Issues Bizarre
Pronoun Guide
At American University's freshmen orientation this August,
students were instructed to introduce themselves by name, hometown, and
"gender pronoun."
When AU freshman Tristan Justice, a Young Americans for
Freedom leader, questioned this instruction, his orientation leader responded,
"Here at AU, we don’t like to make assumptions about people’s
gender."
Justice told
The New Guard, "Despite being
informed that American University was a very liberal campus, I went to
orientation with high hopes that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded, but I was
wrong."
Tristan’s story was covered by outlets including Fox News
and The Drudge Report, bringing the proliferation of this radically progressive
ritual to the attention of a national audience.
At the same time, the University of Tennessee’s decision to
issue a bizarre guide to gender pronouns like “ze” and “zir” was also making
big headlines. The school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter pushed back by
publishing a
viral video that showed their peers struggling to even pronounce
the words in the guide. Soon after, their school removed the guide from its
website.
9. Duke University
Broadcasts Muslim Call to Prayer
In an initiative to promote religious pluralism,
Duke
University decided last January to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer
every Friday on campus from the Chapel bell tower.
After pressure from Young America’s Foundation, whose
spokeswoman Ashley Pratte reported
extensively on the story on Fox News, other
conservative leaders, and thousands of concerned parents, students, and alumni,
Duke canceled the initiative.
8. Students Vote to
Remove Chick-Fil-A From Campus
In January, students at Indiana University voted 18-9 to
remove Chick-Fil-A from its Bloomington campus, based on concerns over the
company's views on same-sex marriage. But in the same meeting the
Residence Hall Association voted unanimously to support and establish a
residence hall floor for gender blind housing for those who identify as gay,
lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
The school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter leader
Andrew Ireland
was interviewed about the decision by Elizabeth Hasselbeck on
Fox & Friends, where he noted this was a giant double standard. Ireland
remarked, “[The vote] was an act of discrimination against a worldview.”
Political correctness is coming for your chicken.
7. High School
Principle Seizes Mic to Dismiss Students During YAF Lecture, Says Shapiro
“Crossed a Line”
In front of a capacity crowd of more than 450 students, an
Otay Ranch High School administrator
dismissed students from conservative
powerhouse Ben Shapiro’s speech, which was organized by the school’s Young
Americans for Freedom chapter and sponsored by Young America’s Foundation,
after telling the audience Shapiro’s conservative beliefs “crossed a line” earlier
this December.
The administrator’s actions were caught on camera and can be
seen at the :44 second mark in the video below.
The administrator seized the microphone from a student
during the Q&A session to dismiss the enthusiastic audience after he
objected to Shapiro’s conservative outlook on poverty. The audience cand be
heard booing their teacher on video, with one student saying “I want to stay!”
More proof that students are conditioned to oppose
conservative ideas before they even get to college.
6. University of
California Board of Regents Considers Restrictive Speech Code
As debates over free speech intensified at campuses across
the country, the University of California system
considered adopting an
exceptionally restrictive speech code in the fall of 2015. The policy
encouraged students to report “derogatory language reflecting stereotypes or
prejudice” as speech that was in violation of the code, among other things.
The process ignited a fierce debate in California and in the
national media, exemplifying the troubling trend of unconstitutional
restrictions on exercises of First Amendment rights on American campuses.
Of all places, the UC system should have a strong respect
for free speech since the movement began at Berkeley fifty years ago.
While the policy was rejected, California bureaucrats like
Janet Napolitano will likely continue their efforts to crack down on students’
rights to free expression.
5. Christina Hoff
Sommers’ Speech Combated with ‘Safe Spaces’
When it was announced that widely respected conservative
feminist Christina Hoff Sommers would be giving a lecture at Georgetown
University sponsored by the
Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, the school’s
feminist community was
outraged. They claimed Sommers’ insistence upon
questioning false statistics about sexual assault amounted to “hate speech” and
was “triggering” for students on campus.
Students set up “safe spaces” where anybody who felt unsafe
because of Dr. Sommers’ words could seek shelter—they held signs in the back of
the lecture hall redirecting attendees who became endangered by Dr. Sommers’
“hate speech.”
After the event, Georgetown requested that CBLPI take down
their video of the lecture. In response, Luce Institute president Michelle
Easton remarked, “Could it be that the University is trying to conceal the
embarrassing behavior and declarations of its feminist students at our lecture?
Dr.
Sommers‘ lecture was a public event, and the camera was in plain view.
Surely the University understands that.”
This event brought the proliferation of “safe spaces” to national attention, shedding
light on the Left’s new strategy to further isolate college students in bubbles
of progressivism and eliminate conservative speech from campus completely.
4. GW YAF Threatened
with Defunding, Called Violent and Hateful for Resisting Sensitivity Training
The George Washington University’s YAF chapter had no idea
how much
controversy they would cause by simply suggesting the university
provide a religious exemption for students who wanted to opt out of recently
mandated sensitivity training. But after their peers found out they had
resisted the student government’s mandated reeducation camps, other student
organizations demanded they be defunded, compared them to ISIS and cancer, and
said they had “committed an act of violence” against the transgender community.
Their story went viral, earning coverage on Fox News, The
Daily Caller, Breitbart, The Washington Times, and many other outlets.
Most importantly,
top administrators assured students that no mandatory training would
ever be
held at The George Washington University. The following semester, the
chapter had their highest recruiting drive in recent memory.
GW YAF’s victory for free speech drew national attention to
the pervasive trend of university-mandated sensitivity training, which is
typically no more than a thinly veiled effort to institutionalize leftist ideas
and label conservative beliefs “hate speech.”
3. American Sniper
Screening Canceled for ‘Islamophobia’
When the University of Michigan announced it would be screening
the hit film
American Sniper, Muslim
and Middle Eastern students began circulating a petition demanding the movie be
cut because of its allegedly anti-Muslim message. Students complained the film
made them feel “uncomfortable” and unsafe.
The university announced it would cancel the screening of
American Sniper and replace it with the
children’s movie
Paddington.
Michigan YAF
took the lead in pushing back against the
university’s decision to pull the movie. Chairman Grant Strobl called for a
return to sanity as a guest on Fox News.
After being harshly criticized in the national media, and
from football coach Jim Harbaugh, for their strange decision, the university
announced it would indeed be showing
American
Sniper and called their choice to cancel it a “mistake.” Still, other schools had
similar issues with the film.
2. Yale Students Riot
Over Halloween Email
In recent years, Halloween has brought out the worst in our
nation’s professors and university administrators. Annually, they lecture
students across the country on ensuring their Halloween costumes are
politically correct, inoffensive, and “microaggression”-safe. This involves
discouraging students from wearing sombreros, dressing up like Pocahontas, or
imitating their favorite rappers. This new push against “cultural
appropriation” inspired a Yale faculty member to send students a notably calm
and rational defense of politically incorrect Halloween costumes, urging
students not be censored by the university, which had sent an earlier email
reminding them to be “culturally aware” and sensitive.”
This one thoughtful and reasonable email set off a
firestorm. Students gathered to demand an apology and a resignation for the
faculty member’s failure to create a
“safe space.” As he attempted to reason
with them on the quad, a viral video caught the students screaming
expletive-laden rants about sensitivity in his face.
In response to the uproar over “cultural appropriation”
exhibited by students at Yale and across the country, Virginia Tech’s Young
Americans for Freedom chapter actually staged a
“Funeral for Halloween” on
their campus, complete with a coffin and eulogy for the once enjoyable holiday.
1. Mizzou Turned
Upside Down Over Questionable Accusations of Racism, Black Conservative Called
‘Uncle Tom’
This case is easily our country’s most
high profile campus
controversy in recent memory. Large-scale protests and demonstrations in early
November drew reporters and camera crews from around the world to the
University of Missouri campus. After the school’s football team joined with
black student groups to demand the university president resign for allegedly
failing to adequately address racial issues, they succeeded and Tim Wolfe
stepped down. Not satisfied, they
continued to protest and demand more resignations. The protests at Mizzou
spawned a spate of protests at school’s around the country that drew heavy
coverage from the national media.
Unsurprisingly, many of the allegations of racism turned out
to be
false or
wholly unsubstantiated. Students and professors were captured on
tape turning journalists away and speaking out against free speech rights.
Still, one real and documented case of racism went
completely ignored by the demonstrators. When Mizzou’s conservative club took
Young America’s Foundation’s activism advice and defended the school’s statue
of Thomas Jefferson from campus liberals who had vandalized it, Jasmine Wells,
a black member of the conservative club, was called an
“Uncle Tom” on social
media. Not a single one of the protestors expressed any concern.
The weekend after their campus erupted into chaos, members
of Mizzou’s conservative club attended Young America’s Foundation’s Fall
Conference at the Reagan Ranch where they heard from conservative powerhouse
Ben Shapiro. Within a day of Shapiro’s speech, Young America’s Foundation
organized a free-speech oriented lecture by Shapiro on Mizzou’s campus.
Hundreds of students attended the lecture in person. As of now, nearly half a
million people have viewed the video online.
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