As I have noted many times, and experienced firsthand in the last few weeks at the University at Buffalo, Truman State University, and Gettysburg College, colleges and universities today are not institutions of higher learning, but factories of hard-Left and pro-jihad indoctrination, propagandizing and brainwashing students into becoming ugly little fascist shock troops for twenty-first century totalitarians. Administrators, as I have also experienced firsthand, not just at the University at Buffalo but also in the past at Temple University, Saint Anselm College and DePaul University, actively aid and abet all this.
Public universities and colleges must cease to be indoctrination centers for the hard-Left, and ensure that dissent from the Leftist line is not censored and the dissenters brutalized, or they should receive no taxpayer funding of any kind, and required to include in all promotional literature a statement to the effect that they don’t receive any public funding because of their intolerance of all intellectual dissent. If they are private universities or colleges, they should be required to include a warning label on all their promotional literature: “Warning: this institution does not tolerate views that deviate from the mainstream Leftist line. Enroll at your own risk.”
“Editorial: The suppression of expression on campus needs to stop,” Daily Commercial (Leesburg, Florida), May 5, 2017:
President Donald Trump has rattled some in our political chattering class with overtures to some of the ruthless dictators stalking our globe. We’ve lived for months with unsupported speculation about Trump’s bromance with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has exacerbated the hand-wringing recently by positive references directed at the likes of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt’s Abdel ¬Fatah al-Sissi.
One chief complaint from the president’s critics is that Trump is inappropriately extending goodwill to strongmen with weak records of tolerating dissent, free expression and human rights.
Perhaps we would better served if those who questioned the president’s attitude toward the world’s worst authoritarians would stop tolerating homegrown forces who emulate their behavior.
Last week outspoken conservative pundit and author Ann Coulter was slated to shake up the hallowed halls at California’s premiere state university in Berkeley, which prides itself on uninhibited expression. Invited by a pair of conservative student groups, Coulter was expected to talk about her support for Trump and his immigrati0n views. It didn’t happen.
University administrators cancelled her April 27 appearance in mid-April, a few days after an unrelated brawl broke out in downtown Berkeley between pro- and anti-Trump forces. The college then offered to reschedule for Tuesday (when classes would be out). Coulter rejected the offer and vowed to come to Berkeley on the original date, and then watched as her sponsors bailed, leading her to ditch the idea for good.
The reason provided by the university and Coulter’s sponsors was the same: the atmosphere on campus had become so poisonous that neither side could guarantee the safety of Coulter or, presumably, her fans or the protesters.
Yet Coulter’s was the third appearance by a conservative at the supposed birthplace of the Free Speech Movement that was cancelled because of fear about the violent reaction of those who despise the president. In February UC-Berkeley dropped former Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos after an anti-Trump protest devolved into a riot.
The College Republicans at Berkeley then invited David Horowitz, a UC-Berkeley grad and one-time apologist for the Black Panthers who converted to conservatism, to his alma mater in mid-April as a substitute for Yiannopoulos. The group pulled the plug on that after campus police declared that, in order to diminish the threat of violence, Horowitz could only speak in the afternoon, not in the evening, and only to students. The event was cancelled, the College Republicans’ president wrote, because the police rules left only one venue, located some seven blocks from campus, and would have cost the group several thousand dollars for security.
Such ill-tempered, anti-Trump fretting has been occurring again and again on campuses of all sizes.
Earlier this year conservative author Charles Murray’s attempt to speak at Middlebury College in Vermont sparked a brawl that left Murray’s campus sponsor in the hospital with a concussion, and him writing afterward that he feared for his safety.
Another conservative writer, Heather Mac Donald, was not allowed to speak publicly at Claremont McKenna College in California, but instead was ushered to a private room, where she gave her talk via livestream as demonstrators pounded on the windows of the room and hurled expletives at police.
At New York University, a protest of conservative journalist Gavin McInnes turned ugly, with demonstrators fighting police, pepper-spraying McInnes himself and nearly a dozen people arrested.
At the University of Buffalo this week, Robert Spencer, a conservative speaker who discusses Islamic terrorism, was shouted down and denounced as a Nazi by critics. No violence occurred, but audience members told reporters they feared the tension created by his appearance could have prompted it….
mortimer says
Universities are based on the notion of FREEDOM of SAGES TO EXPLORE AND TEACH IDEAS that may not be convenient for the political rulers. This idea goes back to 1155AD when the University of Bologna adopted an academic charter, the Constitutio Habita, which guaranteed the right of a traveling scholar to unhindered passage in the interests of education.
Robert Spencer, author of 16 books on Islam, thousands of articles and hundreds of speeches and interviews, and winner of a hundred debates about Islam, has demonstrated a MAGISTERIAL COMMAND of the subject of JIHADISM… the classical Islamic doctrine of Islam’s unending warfare against disbelievers.
mortimer says
Before smug, Leftarded, unread ideologues try to CENSOR discussion of jihadism, let them DEBATE Robert Spencer and PROVE him WRONG on any point in his 16 books. They will be unable to do so.
Smugness, speculation, assumption, political correctness, opinionating, supposing, conjecturing, surmising, guessing, inferring, presuming, venturing to say, taking for granted, being so bold as to suggest, imagining, expecting, theorizing, conceiving or putting forward the opinion that HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH VALID, FACT-BASED, ACADEMIC CONCLUSIONS.
A ‘guess’ is NOT a conclusion. If Robert Spencer cannot be shown to be wrong about jihad by any Muslim apologist or university professor of Islam, that means that Robert Spencer must be correct and CLASSICAL ISLAM ACTUALLY TEACHES WARFARE AGAINST DISBELIEVERS.
Let the Leftarded profs STEP FORWARD IN A MANLY, BRAVE FASHION AND DEBATE Robert Spencer or admit that his thesis about jihad is UNASSAILABLE.
TR says
Could not agree more Robert with your opening statement ; “As I have noted many times, and experienced firsthand in the last few weeks at the University at Buffalo, Truman State University, and Gettysburg College, colleges and universities today are not institutions of higher learning, but factories of hard-Left and pro-jihad indoctrination, propagandizing and brainwashing students into becoming ugly little fascist shock troops for twenty-first century totalitarians”
This Marxist/Jihad alliance has been going on for 50 years now at the University of Buffalo. 1969 SDS Conference there was attended by the hardcore National Office SDS, Niagara Regional heavies and the “Middle Eastern Freedom Fighters” as these Terrorists were referred to as by SDS. These four Radical Islamists were brought across the Peace Bridge after being picked up at the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.and transported to the meeting at UofB in a blue Mach 1 Mustang driven by the soon to be appointed replacement Niagara Regional Traveler Thomas replacing Marshall and Kelly. Sitting in the Right rear seat Abu Ahmed was the spokesman who did most of the talking along with picture taking like a tourist. The tall thin younger Jihadi introduced by Abu as Ben sat in the front seat for more leg room.
The CNA Naval Project, RYM1-SDS plotted Bombing there by U of Buffalo SDS District was prevented early in 1970. Never known to the public. Yes you are right on with The Hard Left/ Warriors of Jihad connection and indoctrination centers! Been building radicalism for 50 years+ that I have witnessed. Community Organization infiltration into Education as a priority along with media, Labor and political Party. The have worked long and hard at attaining the ground they now hold.
Paul N Silas says
” I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” , “Satan is the father of lies”.
As far back as the 1920’s Vladimir Lenin saw the Muslims as allies in his convoluted class struggle. Mo (curses and ham be upon him) and Karl Marx ( may he rot in hell also) are united to overturn the West and prepare it for Sharia/Socialism.
Dum Spiro says
(This kind of thing has been and is happening in Canada as well.)
For example, Trent Horn had been invited to Brock University to talk on “Does human life matter? Why the unborn life should count.” (http://brocklifeline.weebly.com/).
Watch to see how Trent was disrespected by the protosnowflakes there in 2014 (with no real help from college security):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiLOv3QdAo
Here is a longer clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWiRxdZ4RaE
Ezra Levant had a fire alarm pulled five minutes into his talk “Trumping Trudeau” at UofT on February 4, 2017. Canada is ahead of the USA in its civilizational decline. Both countries should be able to stop the civilizational decline if they take rational steps now…
— Spero
Julian Farmer says
The Generation from Hell! No manners no thought. Just subnormal. The average IQ in Universities now is around 80%, just above Somalia. This was the result of IQ tested students-millennials. Modern blacks scored higher. In my day average University IQ was around 110%.
Richie says
It’s all about the money. Universities offer ridiculous leftist drivel courses like Fluidity studies’ and pain’t white people as evil because people will pay for those classes. Eventually though the schools will lose revenue admissions will drop, alumni will stop giving money and they will be slapped with countless lawsuits by conservative students who were bullied and harassed. Santa Cruz capitulation to outright Communist and black supremacist demands will likely result in legal action. My advice to college grads, if your university is now a liberal indoctrination camp, don’t give them a penny in contributions and boycott all of their activities.
Bill says
It is about the money. These institutions are allegedly nonprofit, but they are filled with administrators and faculty that are profiting quite handsomely. If these Leftifa universities were to see declines in enrollment, they would alter course promptly. They are not and it will be a long time before they do.
We are seeing this because those in charge of directing university affairs at both the Trustee and Administration levels absolutely want the institutions to be leftist indoctrination camps. If it were otherwise, the leftists would not be empowered to behave at all levels of university life as they do. You simply would not see this unbridled assault on free speech and inquiry, at least not to the extent we are seeing now. The problem starts right at the top, the Board and Trustee level. There is no direct fix for that.
The government controlled institutions are largely run by anti-Constitutional leftists and the civil rights violations of campus conservatives are the direct result of government action. They are more vulnerable for civil rights violations because you have government action. Someone has to bear the expense of taking them on though. Who can afford it?
Many of the private institutions are Leftist dominated and, although ostensibly not government run, they get a heavy dollop of government subsidy and so are beholden to leftist politicians and bureaucrats. They have more room to limit freedom and act arbitrarily with less fear of civil or criminal accountability.
It will take lawsuits and damage claims and massive payments by offending universites to alter the course. That will take years. The historic liberal “Civil Rights” and “Free Speech” advocacy groups support only leftist free speech, which is why they are noticeably uninterested in defending the rights of campus conservatives. It almost seems as if they take delight in watching the violence and mayhem committed against them. So any push back has to be self-funded or from the few institutions like FIRE, which have limited resources.
The cost of private higher educations is expensive, almost absurdly so. State education is more affordable, but still very expensive. Few parents have the means to spend additional money to protect their children from predatory leftist professors and administrators. Look at the Duke lacrosse players. Some of them had the resources to defend themselves against a biased. slanderous and hate-filled university community and a malevolent government prosecutor. Most families cannot.
I had to step in to protect one of mine from being railroaded by liberal administrators, their phony result-driven and amateurish investigations, flawed findings, slanders, and trumped up code of conduct violations. They had a neat little cottage industry going on. I was given reason to believe that if just let them and their recommended cadre of professionals assist (at our expense) all would be well. It was outrageous. It is not hard to spot a shakedown.
We refused. Promptly hired our own attorney and forced a standstill. They quietly backed off. But that is what it took and it was expensive. We were satisfied to simply see ours graduate (top honors, top department academic awards etc.) and then walk away, just glad to be rid of them. While tempted to pursue true justice, it was just too expensive. We could not have been the first target. How many people just suffered it in silence?
Richie says
The left has a curios knack and crying victim and playing the oppression oympics , but by far the most aggressive bullies and bigots on college campus today are people on the left . Leftists go out of their way to harass and threaten people, and promote racism and they are the ones who are quickest to start throwing punches when they encounter someone who doesn’t engage in groupthink.
Richie says
The left is so rabidly antisemititic how long before they demend colleges stop admitting Jews?
Steve K says
The porblem is the left are rarely if ever held accountable. Most of the time rioters and such, are caught and released the next day.
I propose some ideas
(1) When there is a free speech event call out the national guard to protect people.
(2) Investigate Berkeley as to who told the cops to stand down–whoever did it– mayor and/or police chief, charge them with aiding and abetting the rioters.
(3) pass a law that you cannot cover your face during a protest–anyone doing so should be assumed to be involved in illegal activiity.
(4) Declare the Antifa and black bloc extremist hate groups and terrorist groups–use RICO laws against them and anyone funding them.
(5) No more catch and release–charge rioters with felony federal rioting charges.
Its time to do something about this. The left is destroying free speech. That cannot be allowed to happen.
Adam says
“…for many years both parents and teachers have sensed that strong, heavily financed left-wing influences have been doing their best to foster a climate of hedonistic nihilism among the schools. If these people had their way we would develop a prospective nightmare in our schools – schools without grades, without discipline, without prayers, without pledges of allegiance, without Christmas, without Easter, without patriotism, without morals, without standards of speech or standards of dress.
Already, wherever they have taken over the educational system, we see the worst of their products – intellectual guerrillas emerging from the universities trained in “participatory mobocracy”
The Naked Capitalist
W. Cleon Skousen
Copyright 1970
“participatory mobocracy” good phrase
Matthieu Baudin says
“…Public universities and colleges must cease to be indoctrination centers for the hard-Left, and ensure that dissent from the Leftist line is not censored and the dissenters brutalized, or they should receive no taxpayer funding of any kind…”
These radical attitudes have remained virtually unchecked for so long now that campuses have indeed become grooming places for thuggery and intolerance. Unfortunately many parents and grandparents of these malleable adolescents actively urge them on in their behaviour. The higher education centres cost the community a fortune whether through public finances or private, money that could be reallocated elsewhere, to alternative social bodies that foster reciprocal relationships, dialogue and trust.
Carolyne says
I believe that much of the anti-democratic activity at colleges and universities is caused by the large amounts of money given them by Saudi Arabia and other oil rich countries. IMO it should be illegal for these institutions to accept foreign money. There is also no logical reason for the almost unattainable tuition rates and this should be investigated to see who, if anyone, is raking funds off the top.
Geppetto says
We are witnessing the result of decades of neglect and unconscionable, willful ignorance as the radical, progressive, socialist, communist left quietly infiltrated and firmly established themselves in American academia. The wild, violent, vitriolic dissent that now dominates the news are the fruits of their labor, the graduates of these indoctrination centers that continue their decades long, nefarious, anti-American, anti-Capitalism, “social justice,” identity politics amidst a rising, increasingly vocal crescendo against what hundreds of patriotic Americans of the recent past have fought, been maimed and died for while many, mostly older Americans sit and wonder what the hell is going on. Meanwhile, Americas youth, the eager recipients and victims of this subversive indoctrination, justify all of this by repeating the superficial, political platitudes that they’ve been spoon fed by tenured, ham fisted, teaching professionals, communist, socialist sympathizers, members of what is loosely referred to as the hard Left.
And here we are now with a growing cadre of writers, journalists, politicians, sports and entertainment media gliterati, clamoring, fuming, while proudly and openly professing their hatred for Donald Trump and all things republican or conservative, their intent to impeach President Trump and their creation of Sanctuary cities, towns & states to harbor and protect criminal illegal aliens and keep them from the clutches of those “evil” ICE, immigration law enforcers. Some now have gone so far as providing a taxpayer funded slush fund to pay for the legal defense of criminal, illegal immigrants in U.S. courts.
Yeah! It’s that nuts, but reversing course and reestablishing the ivy halls of America’s academic institutions to what was once their proud heritage, institutions dedicated to teaching their students a fact based, no holds barred history of America, how, instead of what, to think and the ability to deal with the harsh realities of life devoid of the so called, recently invented “micro-aggressions” and “safe spaces,” will be no easy task but one that cannot be avoided if America is to survive as “the shining city on a hill;” with all its faults perhaps the only society and culture capable of protecting the advance of modern civilization.