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College Insurrection Tag

2015 was a big year in campus news and we covered pretty much all of it at College Insurrection, which makes it difficult to pick just 10 posts so I'm going to focus on stuff that made me laugh. Here goes: 10. Holyoke College Cancels the ‘Vagina Monologues’ for Not Being Feminist Enough 9. University of Michigan Students Were Questioned About Free Speech — With Alarming Results 8. Liberal Academia Needs The “Old Yeller Treatment” 7. Appalachian State University Publicly Shames ‘Privileged’ Students 6. Oberlin College Choir Creates Brilliant Musical Parody About ‘Triggered’ Students

Scrolling through our Oberlin College tag presents a very sorry recent history of the campus. The Great Oberlin College Racism Hoax of 2013 was not used an opportunity to examine the campus grievance culture, but rather, as an excuse to to advance “even more extreme policies”. A student wrote to me at the time:
I’d like to personally thank you for your coverage of the Oberlin hate hoax. Many students… have been following your site and are glad that somebody is helping to get the word out about the Oberlin administration’s response. The Daily Caller story just grazes the surface of what really happened. The administration didn’t just allow students to live in fear, they actually used that fear to get students to push for even more extreme policies on campus. Many students formed into “working groups” to propose solutions for “institutional change”, nearly all of which have been approved by the administration and are being enacted.

It's that time of the week again. Let's look back at the last seven days in blogging. Of course, there was plenty of political news. The media became the story a couple of times.

Many college campuses are seeing sets of “Demands” issued by students to administrations, often seeking to suppress speech the students deem offensive and to increase faculty and student affirmative action policies and programs. Hamilton College students using the name "The Movement" recently set what was believed to be a record 83 Demands. At least one of the Demands, for a "President of Color," was promptly ignored by the college when it named its new President recently. Oberlin College students, however, may be about to set a new record for length if not number of Demands. Oberlin, a self-proclaimed progressive institution, has seen racial strife on campus in recent years, including The Great Oberlin College Racism Hoax of 2013 perpetrated primarily by a progressive white student trying to get the campus talking about race. Even after the hoax was exposed, the resulting campus conflict was exploited to advance “even more extreme policies.” (You can listen to my explanation of the hoax and result here.) More recent strife on campus involved protests by the Black Student Union over the quality of food in the Afrikan Heritage House. Oberlin also is known for non-racial activism, such at the "trigger warning" protests against the appearance of Christina Hoff Sommers. A student tipped us off that starting last night students began circulating and signing a 14-page list of 50 separate demands, in the name of the Black Students Union (BSU).

Conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza visited Amherst College in October and engaged in some voluntary debate with a small audience. One student asked two very long questions which, combined with D'Souza's responses, make up the bulk of the video below. The first question is about American foreign policy in the Middle East and D'Souza dispenses that issue fairly quickly. The second question has to do with social justice and racial privilege.

Recent remarks by Liberty University president Jerry Falwell, Jr. are going viral. In an address to a large audience, he urged students to obtain gun licenses and arm themselves. Falwell was obviously talking about the terrorists who carried out the attacks in San Bernardino, but as you'll see below, he had to clarify his statement. Bradford Richardson reports at The Hill:
Liberty University president urges students to carry guns, ‘end those Muslims’ The president of the Liberty University is urging students to carry concealed weapons on campus in order to “end those Muslims” who would attack the campus. “Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here,” President Jerry Falwell, Jr., told students at convocation Friday, according to the News & Advance.

In the aftermath of the Clock Boy incident, Ahmed and many new allies on the left claimed that his arrest was proof of anti-Islam bigotry in a racist country. This year's valedictorian at Ahmed's old high school disagrees. From the FOX News Insider:
Claims of Intolerance at ‘Clock Kid’s’ School Disputed by Muslim Valedictorian Critics around the country cried Islamophobia when 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed was arrested this year for bringing a homemade clock to school and prompting fears of a bomb. Now, the Muslim valedictorian of that school is coming to its defense, saying that her experience at MacArthur High was nothing but respectful.

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.”