Ah, college: The free interplay of ideas. Tolerance for differences. Respect for subversive-of-the-status-quo opinions. Professors who want their students to think for themselves.
Not! A UC Santa Barbara “feminist” professor has been accused by pro-life demonstrators of attempting to shut down a graphic anti-abortion demonstration, stealing a sign, and allegedly assaulting a kid who sought to retrieve it. From The College Fix story:
A department of feminist studies professor has been accused of going berserk after coming across a campus prolife demonstration that used extremely graphic displays, leading a small mob of students to chant “tear down the sign” before grabbing one of the signs, storming off with it, then allegedly engaging in an altercation with a 16-year-old prolife protestor who had followed the educator to retrieve it…
The confrontation took place at the coastal, public university’s “free speech” area, a heavily traversed part of the quad.
The roughly 3-feet by 5-feet displays included images of aborted fetuses, as well as diagrams detailing the abortion process and other “educational” information, according to Kristina Garza, a spokeswoman for 16-year-old Thrin. Garza heads up campus outreach for the nonprofit, Riverside-based Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust – a group that had trained the Short sisters and other students on how to conduct campus antiabortion events.
I am not a fan of graphic displays of dismembered fetuses. But PETA and other such groups present gory images in support of animal rights on campuses all the time, so why not pro-lifers?
I once spoke to pro-life students at an Ivy League campus who told me about one of their own being cold-cocked when passing out a pamphlet–and the administration did nothing. It takes real courage to be openly pro-life on secular campuses these days.
Alas, the tenured denizens of the modern academy–on so many issues–tolerate only one POV on campus. When it comes to intellectual freedom, they are the real “deniers.”
Reprinted with permission from Human Exceptionalism.