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College Insurrection Tag

Dartmouth College students who are part of the Black Lives Matter movement recently staged a protest which invaded a school library. As we reported yesterday at College Insurrection, some students who were trying to study allege physical assault. Campus Reform has the details:
Dartmouth students lead profane Black Lives Matter protest Black-clad protesters gathered in front of Dartmouth Hall Thursday night, forming a crowd roughly one hundred fifty strong. Ostensibly there to denounce the removal of shirts from a display in Collis, Dartmouth's student center the Black Lives Matter collective began to sing songs and chant their eponymous catchphrase. The band then marched into Baker-Berry Library. “F*** you, you filthy white f***s!” “F*** you and your comfort!” “F*** you, you racist s***!”

Esteemed Harvard law professor and author Alan Dershowitz addressed the controversy unfolding on college campuses like Yale and Mizzou in an appearance on the Kelly File Thursday night and called it what it is. Zachary Leshin of CNS News provides a partial transcript:
Dershowitz: ‘The Fog of Fascism Is Descending Quickly Over Many American Universities’ “These are the same people who claim they are seeking diversity. The last thing many of these students want is real diversity, diversity of ideas. They may want superficial diversity, diversity of gender, diversity of color, but they don’t want diversity of ideas.” “We are seeing a curtain of McCarthyism descend over many college campuses,” said Dershowitz. “I don't want to make analogies to the 1930s, but we have to remember it was the college students who first started burning books during the Nazi regime. And these students are book burners. They don’t want to hear diverse views on college campuses.”

As a result of protests that included a hunger strike by a graduate student and the pressure of a threatened boycott by members of the football team, President Tim Wolfe and Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin of the University of Missouri announced their resignations yesterday. The protests occurred after a series of alleged racial incidents at the university. Here's a quick summary of the events leading up to their departures:
The protests began after the student government president, who is black, said in September that people in a passing pickup truck shouted racial slurs at him. In early October, members of a black student organization said slurs were hurled at them by an apparently drunken white student. Frustrations flared again during a homecoming parade, when black protesters blocked Wolfe's car, and he did not get out and talk to them. They were removed by police. Also, a swastika drawn in feces was found recently in a dormitory bathroom. The university did take some steps to ease tensions. At Loftin's request, the school announced plans to offer diversity training to all new students starting in January, as well as faculty and staff.

By now, you may have heard that University of Pennsylvania religious studies professor Anthea Butler is under fire for comments she made about Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson. Butler suggested that Carson, a renowned pediatric brain surgeon, should get the ‘coon of the year’ award. We covered the story at College Insurrection. In fact, we've written extensively about Professor Butler at College Insurrection over the years: Surely, a professor who said something similar about Obama would face a backlash. Most media is ignoring the racist taunt. The panel on The Five discussed the issue yesterday and ironically it was Juan Williams, easily the most liberal participant, who felt that Butler should be dismissed from her position.

Someone seems to have a problem with conservative students exercising their free speech. I don't think they heard him. The problem isn't limited to flyers. Higher education seems to have a free speech problem. Some schools seem to get it.

A Wesleyan University student named Bryan Stascavage who writes for the student paper, the Wesleyan Argus, recently penned an op-ed which was critical of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. Since then, all hell has broken loose. Here's a sample of Stascavage's column:
Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think A 20-year-old man walks into a church and massacres nine people, claiming that he was afraid that America was being taken over by Black Americans, citing American race relations as evidence. About a month later, a man wears a GoPro, tapes himself walking up to a local reporter and a cameraman, and shoots them both on camera, proclaiming racial injustice in this country as his motive. Police officers are looking over their shoulders as several cops have been targeted and gunned down. The week before classes started, seven officers were killed in the line of duty; a few were execution-style targeted killings. An officer I talked to put it succinctly: “If they want to come after me, fine. Just come at me head on. Don’t shoot me in the back of my head. I’d rather go down with a fighting chance.” Is this an atmosphere created by the police officers and racist elements in society itself? Many, including individuals in the Black Lives Matter movement, believe so.

Susan Brownmiller wrote the 1975 book Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape which set the stage for much of today's feminism. She is not, however, a huge fan of everything espoused by today's feminists, including slut walks and rape culture activism. Katie Van Syckle of New York Mag recently interviewed her. Hat tip to Ann Althouse:
I was wondering if you have been following the discussions of rape activism on college campuses. Yes, very closely. In the 1970s we had an extraordinary movement against sexual assault in this country and changed the laws. They [the campus activists] don't seem to know that. They think they are the first people to discover rape, and the problem of consent, and they are not. They have been tremendously influenced by the idea that "You can drink as much as you want because you are the equal of a guy," and it is not true. They don't accept the fact there are predators out there, and that all women have to take special precautions. They think they can drink as much as men, which is crazy because they can't drink as much as men. I find the position "Don't blame us, we're survivors" to be appalling. Also, they [college women] are not the chief targets of rapists. Young women and all women in housing projects and ghettos are still in far greater danger than college girls.