Disclaimer: This is an article that I wrote for The Odyssey, found here. I own all of the rights to this article.
There is a battle that is currently being fought on college campuses and seems to be met with little to no resistance.
Join me for a brief little journey into a few different situations that have made me realize that universities are going absolutely crazy.
But what do I mean when I say universities are going absolutely crazy? It's actually really simple. Take a look around. There are a lot of occurrences where students and even administrations have lost their minds in regards to various happenings
1. Yale
Amid controversy of Halloween costumes on the campus, a faculty member by the name of Erika Christakis made some remarks to the effect of students should be able to wear whatever they want. This sounds like a pretty reasonable sentiment, right? Well the special snowflakes at Yale didn't think so. They arranged a protest in response to this email by Christakis. Nicholas Christakis, who is also a professor and the husband of Erika Christakis, took to the campus to address some of these protesters. If you can get past the fact that these people are actually protesting an email, let's get to some of the things that were said during this...proceeding. An unidentified protester said a couple of things that are really troubling to me.
1. "It's not about creating an intellectual space. IT IS NOT!"
Actually it is. Creating an intellectual space should be the number one priority of colleges and universities. Hopefully, you are there to put in work to get an education to have a degree along with invaluable experience to where you can get a good job and make something of your life. If you don't want an intellectual space where you don't have your ideas challenged, then pack up and go home. Administrators should not be holding your hand the whole way.
2. "It is about creating a home."
No it is not. As I said above, colleges should be about being an intellectual space. That should be priority number one. As long as your are there and you have a place to get food, to sleep, and to basically have even the slightest of comforts, you should be fine.
What do you REALLY have to complain about? This is at YALE!
Sadly, Yale is just a small part of the problem and the infiltration of social justice warriors isn't an isolated incident. If you have made it this far, let's go a little further down the rabbit hole.
2. Mizzou
Graduate student Jonathan Butler went on a hunger strike to protest the handling of an alleged racist incident on campus. The demand was simple: Tim Wolfe (a white man) had to resign from his job. A short while into this the Mizzou football team announced that they would not play until Jonathan Butler ate again. Now among all of this, there was something troubling. More protests sprang up on campus because of what people felt was poor handling over "racist incidents", three of which there were no evidence for.
In addition to students, a Journalism professor by the name of Melissa Click joined the students in creating a "safe speace" from the media. Sorry, but you don't get to block someone else's rights (of the press) because they disagree with you. Melissa Click also called for physical violence upon a STUDENT JOURNALIST. Thankfully, she has lost her position as a professor. I have no sympathy for Mizzou in that their enrollment is down and their donations have taken a hit.
(Note: Jonathan Butler and his family are worth $25,000,000. There's no oppression in his life.)
3. DePaul
If you ever doubted that conservative views were not welcome on college campuses, look no further than DePaul University. There are actually two wonderful examples of how liberal universities do not welcome conservative views. First is the case of Milo Yiannopoulos. Not only did a preacher hijack Milo's platform, but he was also intimidated and threatened with physical violence. In addition to this, security for the event was essentially told not to protect Milo or deescalate any situations.
The second is Ben Shapiro, who did not even get the chance to speak at DePaul. I just wonder what liberals are so afraid of in letting a conservative speaker talk. There was clearly a group of people who wanted to hear these men talk, as their fee had been paid. But if their (liberals') views are the right ones, what are they so afraid of?
4. University of Massachusetts Amherst
The College Republicans at the University of Massachusetts Amherst invited Milo Yiannopoulos , Steven Crowder, and Christina Hoff Summers to speak at their campus. On multiple occasions, they were rudely interrupted by a liberal student who was there and had NO interest in hearing what they had to say. Long story short:
The internet took to calling this woman "Trigglypuff". Now for anyone who might not know she was shouting "Keep your hate speech off this campus!" over and over. You can see the video here it's pretty great. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the lunacy sweeping college campuses.
An aspect of social justice that is highly concerning to me is that people are being treated like children with these safe spaces. Along with this, university students and even children are being taught that if you are a white man, YOU are what's wrong with the world (let's be real that's what "white male privilege" is code speak for). Imagine how damaging that could be to a child. A 5 year old should not be walking through the world mentally flagellating themselves. Even worse, school administrators and teachers should not be encouraging it.
Now I am a white, straight, cisgendered male, but SJWs like to call me "Hitler". Yes I am white. Yes I am straight. I am not going to apologize or feel any sort of guilt for any of those. I have no problem with LGBT people. I know trans people and I have always referred to them by their preferred pronouns, but there is a limit. I will use male or female pronouns and expecting someone to know xe and xer pronouns and other stupid shit like that is just unreasonable. To quote transgender YouTuber Blaire White, "The only Zim I know is Invader Zim." And on that note, I will not begin every conversation by asking what pronouns they prefer. I refuse to accept that there is something inherently wrong with straight, white, cisgendered men simply on that basis.
The most concerning thing to me is that the social justice warriors being indoctrinated in these institutions are next educators, the next politicians. It is concerning to me that this generation will bring up the next in terms of laying on dogmatic propaganda. It is my hope that as this becomes more establishment that the anti-establishment crowd, the libertarian leaning will take on this authoritarian approach.
Milo Yiannopoulos is often criticized for having said "Feminism is cancer". I would offer my own phrase. Feel free to use it if you would like:
"Collectivism is cancer."
A high up problem about the social justice movement is that their ideas revolve around looking at people collectives. "All white people are racist", "All men are misogynistic", etc etc. If any progress is to be made, people have to be looked at and treated as individuals.