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St. Anselm College Bans People for Getting Death Threats – So Why Wasn’t Student Who Got Death Threats Expelled?

Dec 13, 2016 11:45 am By Robert Spencer

“Catholic” college sticks up for pro-abortion Trump foe. My latest in FrontPage:

DiSalvo and the latte-sipping Levesque: unable to implement basic security measures, or just Leftist ideological thugs and foes of free discourse?

According to a fawning profile in New Hampshire’s Union Leader Sunday, after Lauren Batchelder, a student at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire, questioned Donald Trump at a Republican candidates’ debate about equal pay for women and abortion rights, Trump outed her on Twitter as a staffer for Jeb Bush – whereupon, Batchelder claims, she received death threats from all over the country. “Campus security at Saint Anselm was incredibly supportive, she said” – which is ironic, since if Saint Anselm administrators had been consistent, Batchelder would have been expelled: in an ugly demonstration of how only the Leftist point of view is acceptable on campuses nationwide these days, Saint Anselm last year banned me from the campus on the pretext that I have received death threats.

Saint Anselm claims to be a Catholic college, but it is actually just another center for Leftist indoctrination, with a veneer of Pope Francis-type Catholicism. Batchelder’s pro-abortion stance didn’t trouble them at all – but my own opposition to jihad terror, violating as it does so many politically correct shibboleths, troubled them a great deal.

The sorry story unfolded this way. Several years ago, a student group invited me to speak at Saint Anselm. The event was going ahead and posters were being put up advertising the talk when Saint Anselm’s then-President, Father Jonathan DeFelice, O.S.B., canceled my appearance, reportedly citing complaints he had received from Muslim students at the school. Islamic groups, like their Leftist allies, share a taste for shutting down their foes rather than engaging their ideas, and Fr. DeFelice was happy to oblige them.

The following year, after Fr. DeFelice was replaced as President of the college by Dr. Steven R. DiSalvo, and Saint Anselm’s philosophy department tried again to get me on campus, inviting me to be the guest speaker at a symposium. But DiSalvo nixed that appearance as well. Several Saint Anselm professors balked at this, complaining to DiSalvo that colleges were supposed to be centers of free inquiry and intellectual engagement, and that he was acting contrary to what institutions of higher learning were supposed to be all about by banning points of view in line with political correctness.

Cornered, DiSalvo found an excuse: he was all for free inquiry and unpopular opinions (the unpopular question in my case being the rather obvious point that Islam is not really a religion of peace), but he just couldn’t allow me to speak on campus because I had received death threats. He explained that, were I to be present on campus, Saint Anselm students would be endangered – what if a violent extremist were to burst onto campus while I was speaking?

Absurd. Since I first began receiving death threats, I have spoken at universities nationwide, including UCLA, Temple, Penn State, UNC, UVA, Dartmouth, DePaul University, SUNY in both Binghamton and Stony Brook, Brown, Cal Poly, and many, many others. When people who have threatened appear in public, they generally are in the company of security personnel who are equipped and prepared to deal with any incident. Why Saint Anselm considered any kind of security arrangements to be inadequate, DiSalvo didn’t explain, leaving open the question: why is Saint Anselm College so much more unsafe than all other campuses? Other colleges and universities nationwide can and do host speakers who have been threatened, and take measures to ensure everyone’s safety. Saint Anselm, by its own admission, can’t do that.

But as implausible as it was, DiSalvo stuck with his security excuse. And so, on one swing back up to New England last summer, however, I was asked to appear on a Fox News show, but a Fox producer told me that I couldn’t do the segment from the Videolink at Saint Anselm’s New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP), as she had been told that I was not welcome to use the Videolink there. This was based on the same pretext: because I have received death threats, my presence constituted a danger to the students.

Since I doubt that everyone who has received death threats is banned from Saint Anselm College (and indeed, Donald Trump spoke there after receiving highly publicized death threats over his proposed Muslim immigration moratorium), I went to the college to try to find out why, only to be violently confronted by a security guard, James Stankiewicz, who became hysterical and unhinged, and assaulted me when I asked him mildly if the NHIOP received public funding. I was then banned from going onto the campus altogether, on pain of arrest. When I wrote politely to Neil Levesque, the head of the NHIOP, which was directly responsible for the ban, asking for information about why I was banned and for a list of who else had been banned from campus for receiving death threats, he had a corrupt cop from the Goffstown, New Hampshire police department threaten me with arrest if I contacted Levesque again.

This is how a Leftist “institution of higher learning” deals with dissenting points of view these days. Only one point of view is allowed: when I received death threats, I was banned from Saint Anselm College, but when Lauren Batchelder received death threats, she received protection from the same college, even though her opinions oppose its stated principles — but not from contemporary Leftist fashion. Batchelder can only hope she doesn’t get Jim Stankiewicz mad.

What is happening at Saint Anselm College is happening at colleges and universities all over the country nowadays: deviate from the hard-Left line, and you will be brutalized, roughed up, and threatened with arrest. The idea that Saint Anselm College or any similar institution in the U.S. today is actually an institute of higher learning, rather than simply an indoctrination center for the authoritarian Left, operated by thugs with no respect for civil discourse, is absurd.

Saint Anselm College, like so many other outposts of American academia, has swiftly descended from the days when ideas could be entertained and dismissed on their merits alone. But as ridiculous as it is, the contention of DiSalvo and Levesque that those who have been threatened should not venture onto campus should be taken at face value. Anyone else who has received death threats and goes to Saint Anselm should know that there they are exposed and vulnerable. Who wants to be on a campus that claims that it can’t take elementary security measures?

It’s high time to drain the swamp, in academia as well as in the political realm.

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Filed Under: academia, death threats, Featured, free speech Tagged With: James Stankiewicz, Neil Levesque, Saint Anselm College, Steven R. DiSalvo


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Comments

  1. Cecilia Ellis says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 12:08 pm

    Robert Spencer wrote: “He explained that, were I to be present on campus, Saint Anselm students would be endangered – what if a violent extremist were to burst onto campus while I was speaking?”

    Robert, were you speaking at Ohio State University on November 28, 2016? ?

  2. miriamrove says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 1:20 pm

    The left is brain dead. m

    • mortimer says

      Dec 13, 2016 at 1:22 pm

      Agree. The Left in general … and the Leftarded dhimmi pope in particular.

      Leftardation means spouting slogans, rather than understanding all sides of the issues.

    • vlparker says

      Dec 13, 2016 at 2:23 pm

      I disagree. IMHO the left is evil.

  3. Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 2:56 pm

    I went to the college to try to find out why, only to be violently confronted by a security guard, James Stankiewicz, who became hysterical and unhinged, and assaulted me when I asked him mildly if the NHIOP [a New Hampshire franchisee of IHOP] received public funding.”

    What was the nature of this assault? Was it purely verbal, or did it involve a physical act, such as

    • Robert Spencer says

      Dec 13, 2016 at 3:16 pm

      It involved Stankiewicz pushing me down the hallway, shoving me with his hands while fulminating threats. But the corrupt Goffstown, NH cop declined to arrest him.

      • gravenimage says

        Dec 13, 2016 at 3:21 pm

        Appalling, Mr. Spencer.

  4. Richard L Anthony says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 3:24 pm

    When I was attending Saint Anselm College they had an apologist for the Nation Of Islam speak as well as a representative of NOW. These gatherings were barely attended, but no one was hurt from the ideas being expressed. I can’t imagine there that there is a huge population of Muslim students at this Benedictian School. If there is how unfortunate that they can shutdown debate like that.

    • Custos Custodum says

      Dec 13, 2016 at 4:41 pm

      NOW? Under Islam, witchcraft is punishable by death.

  5. Angemon says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 4:24 pm

    Batchelder claims, she received death threats from all over the country. “Campus security at Saint Anselm was incredibly supportive, she said” – which is ironic, since if Saint Anselm administrators had been consistent, Batchelder would have been expelled: in an ugly demonstration of how only the Leftist point of view is acceptable on campuses nationwide these days, Saint Anselm last year banned me from the campus on the pretext that I have received death threats.

    I suspect that, were their feet held to the fire and they were made to account for their actions, they’d lie, lie and lie again to justify the difference in treatment, always using the least damaging lie at the moment.

  6. warren raymond says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 4:40 pm

    Disgraceful. Worst of all is that this doesn’t even make the news. Perhaps Breitbart could get the word out so that the lame stream media is at least notified?

    How about campus watch and all those websites that list the most unhinged leftist thugs that have infiltrated the universities?

  7. Custos Custodum says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 4:51 pm

    The whole sorry episode throws an interesting light on the background of people like Lauren Batchelder who were hired by the Mexico-friendly ¡Jeb! campaign.

  8. billybob says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 6:30 pm

    This is frightful. I remember universities were exactly the opposite back in the ’60s. They sought out controversial topics and invited speakers to talk about all manner of ideas and ideologies. For example, for a time speakers on Marxism were popular. (I remember there was a controversial professor called “Marcusa” who was always in the news) Then there were the anti-war versus pro-establishment types. Back then, I’m sure Robert would have been welcomed with open arms, and Anjem Choudary equally welcomed. Back then, people wanted intellectual stimulation. They wanted to think. So sad to see what has happened to education.

    There is one issue beyond this that really concerns me… Day after day, Robert is exposing issues and people in his articles. You would think that on any given day, there would be somebody and his/her supports extremely upset to having been exposed by Robert. Yet we never, ever hear about anybody’s reaction. Why is that, Robert? There must be a conspiracy in the MSM to never, ever react to one of your articles. Their fear must be, if they ever react to even one, that will open the flood gates.

    This is just unreal. I know Robert has been developing this site for at least a couple of decades, and must be a broadly known figure after all his speaking tours. Especially, everybody in the MSM must know who he is by know. Many reporters must read JihadWatch from time to time.

    Yet we never, ever see any reference to any of Roberts articles, even though sometimes I read one about somebody or other who has been thoroughly exposed and I think… now we are going to see some sparks flying finally! But it never, ever happens.

    Why is the Robert?

    • gravenimage says

      Dec 13, 2016 at 8:24 pm

      Robert Spencer appears pretty regularly on Fox News, which is probably his most mainstream coverage.

  9. Achmed says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 7:57 pm

    Just another example of a Roman Catholic college bein’ a Roman Catholic College. What’s the surprise?

    • gravenimage says

      Dec 13, 2016 at 8:28 pm

      I think its more being a Leftist college than a Catholic one.

  10. gravenimage says

    Dec 13, 2016 at 8:21 pm

    St. Anselm College Bans People for Getting Death Threats – So Why Wasn’t Student Who Got Death Threats Expelled?
    …………………..

    Not only is this inconsistent, but the whole thing is morally grotesque. You should ban those who *make* death threats, not those who receive them.

    • Kay says

      Dec 13, 2016 at 9:23 pm

      Thank you.
      So much madness in the world it’s overwhelming!

  11. Michael Dowd says

    Dec 14, 2016 at 4:03 am

    Yes, another dreadful example of Vatican II Liberal Catholicism: weak and ineffectual standing for nothing. Stop giving money to any Liberal Catholic organization.

  12. Wallace Klinck says

    Dec 14, 2016 at 4:46 am

    The classic strategy is to instigate so-called “anti-Hate” legislation and then to infiltrate the police forces with propagandists who define what is “hate”. Then whenever people of differing views that the authoritarians attempt to disseminate their ideas by means of any public media or institution the police (not always being overly sophisticated or academically educated) do as they are instructed to do and suppress such groups wherever they may seen to operate. Typically, they will shut down venues by advising the owners of rented premises that such groups are “racists” or “hate-mongers” and they will position themselves to meet approaching attendees and advise them that because of “threats of violence” the meeting has been shut down. This type of suppression originates from the highest levels of society and is not a spontaneous action originating with the general public.

    The universities have become thoroughly “white-anted” by Marxist authoritarians of this sort located right up to the top of the administrative ladder. These institutions have with few exceptions been captured by ideologues intent not on educating students by encouraging an open and universal inquisitive approach to ideas but rather to indoctrinate them and use them as a battering ram wilfully to destroy the existing structure of society, while using public funds to finance their revolutionary mischief.

    The time has come for a decisive public backlash to ensure that education becomes once more an honest and unbiased quest for knowledge. Perhaps the publicly funded universities should be decertified, defunded and left to their own devices and resources to pursue their deceptions and disruptions of society.

  13. Richard L Anthony says

    Dec 14, 2016 at 10:31 am

    In defense of Saint Anselm College: The school is very orthodox in its Catholicism. The Philosophy and Theology departments are very traditional no-non-sense with respect to their curriculum. There is a Benedictine Monastery on campus. The new administration in conjunction with the Institute of Politics may be the root cause of the problem in their desire to appear non-controversial. The administration is not doing the students a favor by trying to “main stream” Saint Anselm as a Little Ivy institution at the expense of its mission of providing its students with a Liberal Catholic education.

    • Robert Spencer says

      Dec 14, 2016 at 3:34 pm

      That’s just the opposite of what I hear from several recent alumni. It’s just another Leftist indoctrination boot camp, with a thin veneer of Leftist Catholicism.

  14. TheBuffster says

    Dec 14, 2016 at 3:37 pm

    In a way, the University has a point: which is the more credible death threat – one coming from right-wing anti-abortionists who hate Jeb Bush or one coming from Islamic jihadists?

    But the problem is that such discrimination means that the *credible* threateners, the ones who have actually carried out death threats world-wide, get to set the speaker policy at the college. The bad guys thus succeed in muzzling their challengers because of the success of their practice of terrorism. Terrorism wins.

  15. Jane says

    Dec 14, 2016 at 7:11 pm

    I am a Saint Anselm student. It’s mostly the administration. We have a mostly 50:50 ratio of Leftists and rightists. The monks even dislike the administration and the board of governors’ choices. We ( the students) are just as frustrated with DiSalvo. Money for our dinning hall was put to refurbish the new president only dining room. And three of our chairs broke. Was just want him gone.

  16. Guest says

    Dec 14, 2016 at 8:34 pm

    Just for the benefit of more liberal people who may read this post: I’m pro choice and fairly liberal. I visit this site because I’m concerned about islam as a political movement that is misogynist, illiberal, homophobic, anti-semitic etc.

    This site isn’t visited just by right-wing people who are anti-abortion.

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