Conservative activist and podcast host Charlie Kirk’s speaking engagements on college campuses recently made headlines.
Sacramento Bee: “Another far-right speaker is coming to UC Davis. How should the community respond?”
Chicago Tribune: “UIC students protest far-right speakers Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens on Thursday.”
Nebraska Examiner: “Provocateur Charlie Kirk’s visit to Lincoln brings protesters with alleged vandalism.”
The title and meaning are right there for the reader to see. Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens aren’t just called conservatives or podcast hosts. placed in the “extreme right” category. The third headline also reveals its bias. Kirk is not named as the founder and president of his Turning Point USA, a conservative student organization. No, instead he is a “provocateur”, but the actual vandalism is “suspected vandalism”.
Compare the headlines Kirk and Owens received with harmless headlines written for liberal speakers on campus.
Diamondback (University of Maryland): “UMD’s progressive student group will host Nina Turner, our revolutionary president.”
CBS News: “Kamala Harris delivering keynote address at commencement of Coast Guard.”
Well, it sucks. Nina Turner has no label. self-proclaimed democratic socialist and a staunch supporter of Bernie Sanders for being “far left.”
Or is there a label applied to Kamala Harris? most liberal US Senator before becoming Vice President, according to the 2019 Ideology Score by the nonpartisan GovTrack.
Consistency is valued in much of the political media, but bias is becoming blatant. And campuses have turned outright hostile to the right wing in their attempts to squelch certain viewpoints and opinions.One example is Kirk’s visit to UC Davis. 100 man brawlarrested, property damaged, and injured a police officer who was allegedly jumped from behind and taken to the ground by Antifa-led activists.
And student activists aren’t the only ones involved in this anti-First Amendment action. Academia is leading in (bad) examples.
To emphasize this, Washington Juryonly three of the top 100 ranked American universities had a conservative speaker to deliver their commencement address.: Governor Glenn Youngkin of Virginia Tech; former Heisman Prize winner Tim Tebow of his alma mater, University of Florida; and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Boston University.
With 97 out of 100 colleges avoiding conservative leaders and figures, what message does this send to students?
Universities have not always shunned conservatives. During his tenure, President Reagan gave his nine commencement speeches on campuses from Tuskegee to Notre Dame with little fuss. Back in the Trump era, then-Vice President Mike Pence, former Governor of Indiana, protested When he spoke in 2017, the student exited.
Beef with Pence seems laughable now. It’s a reference to conspiracy theories among many Democrats at the time that Russia “hacked” the 2016 presidential election and inserted Donald Trump into the White House.
Overall, 67% of Democratic voters at the time believed the Kremlin falsified vote tallies to get Trump in office. 2018 YouGov Pollalthough this was not true, US intelligence agencies and Senate investigation.. The perception of the 2016 stolen election, pushed by most of the media, has become a reality in the eyes of some.
But Condoleezza Rice, the first black woman to serve as US Secretary of State, provoked massive protests On campus from uninformed students and some faculty members over her commencement speech at Rutgers University in 2014.
“I think a promise was made to have her speak, but she doesn’t have the dignity to withdraw. So her commencement speech goes on.” claimed History professor Rudolf Bell, who led student protests against Rice.
After the media frenzy, Rice declined, saying she didn’t want her presence to distract from what should be a fun day for alumni. warned.
“I think the idea that this community or this country would rather not listen to the former secretary of state or listen to her is wrong. I don’t think that’s how democracy works best when it doesn’t,” he said calmly in 2016.
Many of Obama’s fellow Democrats disagree. According to a 2017 study, 62 percent Eight college students who identified as Democrats thought it was acceptable to yell at a dissenting speaker on campus. (Only 39% of Republican students felt the same way.) Nearly one in five of her students overall (19%) said violence was used to silence a speaker. Said it was justified.
This is dangerous. Democrats have always emphasized the importance of diversity when it comes to race, sexual orientation, and many other characteristics. However, when faced with civil debates and thoughts, ideas and opinions that differ from one’s own – the point of higher education – censorship seems to be the solution among many young adults (and some older adults). It looks like… Shout out the speaker. even violence.
The situation is only getting worse as social media and traditional media fan the flames.
Joe Concha is a media and political columnist.
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