SAN DIEGO, California, November 13, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Matthew Kapell, a part-time lecturer at San Jose State University, posted a desire to “beat the ****” out of peaceful pro-life witnesses on Twitter last month.
The tweet reads, “Amy Kapell and I were both in a “Grr, we should just go find someone to beat the **** out of” mood. Then we found planned parenthood protestors (sic). Who’s gonna bail us out?”
His photograph shows a dozen pro-life witnesses standing on a sidewalk with placards and a banner asking onlookers to pray the rosary.
According to Co-ed.com, a group called “Pro-Life Libertarians” posted his bellicose tweet on their Facebook page. Patricia Harris, a spokeswoman for San Jose State University, told web magazine The College Fix, that SJSU would “respond appropriately” to Kappel’s tweet.
A spokeswoman for the San Jose State University told LifeSiteNews that the school’s response to Kapell's publication was “a personnel matter” and made no further comment.
Kappel, a native of Detroit, holds a Ph.D in American Studies from Swansea University, Wales.
His tweet represents only one of several violent threats or actions against pro-lifers on American campuses, says Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life America. “But after seeing this threatening post (along with dozens of others on social media from pro-abortion activists), I’m more afraid than ever that one of these threats of violence will turn into much worse,” she told LifeSiteNews.
Hawkins noted that pro-abortion “Antifa” radicals in the U.S. have resorted to violent tactics: “setting campus buildings on fire, smashing windows, and beating up political opponents.”
“But instead of facing consequences for their actions, pro-abortion college administrators, faculty, and staff just look the other way,” she wrote.
On October 19, thieves destroyed a pro-life display called “The Cemetery of Innocents” at the Jesuit St. Louis University by stealing its crosses under cover of darkness. Earlier that month, almost 200 pro-life, pro-immigration posters were torn from the walls of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. According to the campus newspaper, one of the vandals bragged about her group’s actions. Loyola Marymount is also a Catholic college.
Pro-lifers at other heritage-Christian institutions have also been silenced.
“At a Methodist College in Ohio, our Students for Life group was prohibited from being able to participate in the LGBTQ-sponsored “Sex Week” because we wanted to talk about the mental and physical effects of abortion,” Kristan Hawkins told LifeSiteNews. “They told our group they were banned from the event because being pro-life isn’t ‘sex positive.’”
Meanwhile, she reported that Students for Life groups at other colleges in Ohio, Kentucky, and South Carolina have had their displays stolen and/or destroyed.
“I keep telling our student leaders we’re being attacked like never before because our opponents know we’re winning,” she wrote.