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Why can’t conservative students claim a hostile environment?
We know that all the academic speech codes and safe space stuff is aimed at keeping any debate with the right at bay. Right? Why don’t conservative students use these against their professors and against any poster with leftist speakers?
If there is any hate speech going on now in the universities it is by the professors — in the damn classroom — and by the administrations’ handling of violence and protesting on the campus. These should all qualify as a hostile environment if these terms mean anything at all.
Discuss.
Published in Education
The professor is a jerk but it’s not unreasonable that the student should be asked to defend his views in a philosophy class. There was a nice way the prof could have gotten him to do that.
Unless, it is virtue signaling that’s being observed. Then it’s just noticing a fact.
But, my reason for saying that was that people were jumping the discussion post where I was intending it to go. The fact is there are lots of different people being made uncomfortable in the universities and the ones who are most uncomfortable are those people on whom the left is aiming its fire.
Was suspending Habeas Corpus the right thing to do? Was it principled? Did it help the North win? Did it prevent it from being reinstated?
Maybe we should maybe consider if we are different from the left or not. Are we? Because it is not self-evident that defending myself with a gun against an assaulter makes me just like the assaulter, even though I used equal force against him.
Apologetics should be offered through the church to every high schooler graduating. Make a week long retreat of it at a camp site, even.
This was the argument used against the left’s lies that we were morally equivalent to the Soviet Union.
Identity politics runs into this problem.
At some point there’s only one group that’s left. At first it made sense because of the legacy of slavery, but then the left seized on this successful idea and used the template of oppression to include women, Hispanics, gays and now transgenders, (who can be next?) carving out a puzzle-piece in relief that is straight white males. And an even smaller group, SWMs who don’t agree with them.
For white males to engage in identity politics looks like racism, but it’s just the inevitable consequence of their ideas and actions. This is how they attack the alt-right. Any appearance of tribalism from white people is de facto racism.
My question is whether they knew this would be the inevitable result and see this as an opportunity to “prove” the existence of underlying racism, and further fan flames of division. Sometimes I think the left would love to have a civil war with race as a central factor. Clearly the government has (over) prepared for any inkling of a rebellion during the Obama administration with all these agencies militarizing. They come off as paranoid, but they might just have nefarious goals and expect civil unrest.
We can say “Identity politics is wrong and we’d like to see these rules changed, but in the meantime we are going to require you to play by them”. However, until there’s more erosion of power in the MSM, that disclaimer will be ignored and deliberately twisted and misunderstood.
It looks to me that Academia is losing badly. They are failing to educate whole segments of students. They are losing credibility. They are so far out on the skinny branches and they are being laughed at and ridiculed.
Long term, returning manufacturing jobs and emphasis on vocational training rather than a college degree for everyone will empower the working class and middle class. This is another threat to our royal classes.
Because the solution by the liberal educators is: “you don’t like it? Go somewhere you will like it, you closed-minded bigot.”
My daughter is in high school. She was not in school today, thank god, because the school condoned the #ENOUGH walkout. Not being a part of it would get her bullied, would make her stand out, and would set her apart from her peers. The school, which encouraged this division, will not help with the consequences of their actions, because that would mean admitting that their actions are wrong.
They will not admit their actions are wrong.
I do not know how we can fix this without further division without people on the Left waking up and deciding to stand up for freedom of speech. It cannot come from one direction alone.
Well, I see the rot, too — and I know that the Soviet Union did fall in spite of how impervious it was to claims of their fall but it fell when it did because of all the internal problems but combined with a big push by Reagan and the Republicans. The Cold War was won by a decreasing but still powerful enough segment of just the United States (conservatives and Republicans) and a few hawks in the western democracies (but they were outnumbered and losing power constantly).
This problem I’m discussing here is just one aspect of the universities — they say (but it’s a lie, of course) that they want to make the place safe for all people (except for the white relief puzzle piece (I love that imagery), so why doesn’t someone point out how hostile the places are to conservatives or some segment of that coalition — say Christians.
I attended a very liberal, upscale College (now a University) right after I got out of the Army. Now, my experience is my own, and may not be that of others. But I found that, by and large, the Freshmen and Sophomores coming in to that school didn’t know which end was up. I mean, they were all smart and everything, but they had no real world experience, no common sense, really. Even the conservative kids were this way. By the time I got there I’d seen a thing or too, I was (over) confident. I subscribed to National Review, read Buckley, Russell Kirk, etc. I could hold my own. Those younger kids didn’t stand a chance.
“This problem I’m discussing here is just one aspect of the universities — they say (but it’s a lie, of course) that they want to make the place safe for all people (except for the white relief puzzle piece (I love that imagery), so why doesn’t someone point out how hostile the places are to conservatives or some segment of that coalition — say Christians.”
I think there are plenty of people making that argument and I’m optimistic that it’s beginning to gain traction.
The leftist premise, however, precludes them from granting status to conservatives or Christians, because they hold that these are dominant forces that must be curtailed to make way for their new world.
It makes perfect sense to us, but not to them.
But they have overreached. They are alienating liberal-minded Democrats and even the more principled fellow progressives who adhere to basic liberal values.
And most conservatives are classic liberals. I, for one, desperately want to preserve liberal values, which ironically makes me a conservative in this environment.
I’m beginning to believe that these tantrums help promote the more traditional conservative worldviews.
There is a rejection from many young people of these attempts to gaslight and propagandize them. I’ve seen it with my daughter and her friends. Hardly any political knowledge or background, but they know when they are being lied to about human nature.
Great point. They are lambs to the slaughter.
Well I hope you are right.
But, of course, my point is that the kangaroo courts are in place, so use them. And when you are rejected (and I realize that most of you here are saying they won’t allow this) then go to the administration and make your case there.
I don’t know if this had been done or not. I don’t think it has because we probably would have heard about it. But it seems that this approach could make some of the adults feel some guilt about how racist they are.
Here is how “The Cut” portrayed the youth walkout:
https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/national-school-walkout-best-protest-signs.html
As to the Left ever waking up and realizing they should stand up for freedom of speech, they probably have already got a meme about freedom of speech not being worth even one person being called a name by a racist bully.
My son was in the History Masters program at UNC Wilmington ( the place that tried to get rid of Mike Adams). He’s a pretty conservative kid. He told me every one of his professors was a professed Marxist, and if they figured out where he was coming from politically they would have made his life a living hell and there is no way his masters thesis would have been accepted.
He’s currently working in the tech industry in the Triangle, and is in the same situation. Poor kid feels like he’s living his entire life behind enemy lines…
Campuses have been hostile for decades. Nobody has whined over decades of idiotic speech so your comment is just silly. The goal line has slowly shifted for decades and now is quickly shifting. Speech isn’t hostile. Actions are hostile. Conservatives are victims of verbal, and physical assault on a regular basis on campuses and in Democrat cities. We are at a point where on a modern campus, wearing a MAGA hat is equal to walking around a 1960’s southern campus as a black person. You will literally be assaulted and possibly singled out for punishment by campus authorities.
Where they do point out the unfair, they get some flavor of, “Oh, but, white privilege.”
Of course they will. At which point we talk back to them about Ruling Class Privilege.
Your essay ties in nicely with the fact that not all High School students in the USA are for the Left. Some oppose the Left, body mind and soul.
The Daily Wire reported on the many students who did not want to participant in the Soros-led Gun Control Rallies held across the nation yesterday. To see what they emailed about the situation, go to this link:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/28224/read-emails-high-school-students-who-oppose-todays-ben-shapiro
Not everywhere. Send your kids to the right kind of university.
Great stuff — thanks. Schools need to be for the Constitution.
I remember my husband reading a story on the internet to the effect that a black guy had on a Trump hat or tee shirt and he got assaulted in NYC. He might have actually died as a result of the assault.
“Political beliefs are not a protected category under most anti-discrimination laws.”
Perhaps you are unaware, there is something in the Constitution called the “Equal Protection Clause”, which should give equal footing to the points of view taught at Public schools and Universities . I know in the present progressive dominated legal environment, which is extremely hostile to many of our Constitutional protections, anti-discrimination laws hold sway over Constitutional rights. But that is only because too many on the right have allowed the Legal Left to rip our Constitutional system to shreds, under a very contorted view of Marbury vs Madison. In their view, any judge can rule any way he or she deems appropriate so long as it conforms to the Progressive Narrative. Such judicial behavior should be deemed a very serious crime. Article 1 Section 1 only grants the ability to legislate to Congress, and absolutely does not grant the ability to legislate to either the courts or government agencies, who now have taken control over most of our policy making based upon their unconstitutional edicts.
Why am I not allowed to protect my child from political indoctrination in our schools is beyond me. Most educators at the public school, college and Universities discriminate frequently against kids who are either religious or conservative. That should be a very serious felony and should lead to very serious jail time in my book.
Such a defense of “anti-discrimination” laws in our present kangaroo court system is just pathetic.
Well said and thanks for weighing in on this. This is my unprofessional opinion, too. Especially the equal protection issue which has so often been used against the country.
The students who don’t buy this are scared with good reason. The adults prompting and subsidizing it don’t mess around with young people who disagree with them publicly. And these adults are the people in power.
Depending on their promotional literature, I always figured that conservatives might have a case for false advertising claims. If they promise fairness, equality, excellent education and they are delivering something else…
Yes, good point. I think that judges and juries and all fair-minded people can see what they are doing and cry foul. But, the case has to be made.
Yes, this is what the left spends so much effort for – raw power. And they are not afraid to use it against those whom they claim are Nazis.
It’s out of character for conservatives, but it’s not out of character for college students. Young Republicans kind of like sticking it to the admin.
They are making neo-anarchists who are already setting fires.