This week we discussed the effort to impeach two student leaders at Bowdoin. Their offense was wearing sombreros as a fiesta-themed party. Now, there is an effort to impeachment a conservative student leader at the University of Southern California for inviting a conservative speaker to campus. Jacob Ellenhorn appears to have done little more than facilitate conservative voices to be heard on campus.
Ellenhorn is a student senator at USC and president of the College Republicans. The official complaint alleges that Ellenhorn “created a hostile environments (sic) for our USC study body, and has also violated our USC Principles of Community by bringing a speaker and moderating an event that blatantly perpetuates sexism.”
That speaker appears to be Milo Yiannopoulos, a Greek born British journalist and the Technology Editor for Breitbart.com. Yiannopoulos says that he has faced a slew of cancelations on campuses as groups call his views “hate speech” or denounce him as “a rape apologist.”
Yiannopoulos is obviously very, very conservative. However, colleges are supposed to bring together different viewpoints and voices. Yet, faculty and students were outraged that such views were expressed on campus. Stephen Smith, an adjunct professor and executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, insisted that Yiannopoulos is prejudiced and that “Harmful speech has no place in the Trojan community.” Smith seems to discard any notion of diversity in speakers:
“Whatever Yiannopoulos has to say on campus, his invitation here calls into question the human values as well as the academic standards of the USC College republicans. Controversial celebrity presenters may draw an audience, but the integrity of the USC College Republicans is rubbished by such content, the high standards of excellence we all try to uphold at USC are undermined, and the USC community as a whole is deeply offended on behalf of its women students, staff and faculty.”
What is particularly troubling is how the mere expression of controversial views was viewed by some as intolerable and even personally threatening. Marcus Robinson, president of Pitt’s Rainbow Alliance, said that having Yiannopoulos speak made him fearful of being on campus. He is quoted as saying “I felt I was in danger, and I felt so many people in that room were in danger. This event erased the great things we’ve done.” Robinson reportedly said that the University should have provided counselors in a neighboring room to help students who felt “invalidated” or “traumatized” by the event.
I have never heard Yiannopoulos or read his work. However, I fail to see how allowing a conservative voice — even an arch conservative voice — should be “traumatizing” to those who disagree with such views. College is a time to hear a plethora of different voices and values, even some which you may reject. If students feel “invalidated” by a conservative speaking on campus, they can “validate” their own views with their own speakers.
Source: FOX
Yiannopoulos is obviously very, very conservative.
This is completely false. He’s very much against illiberal efforts to control other people through intimidation and institutions punishment.
Steve, Thanks for the link. Milo being in Madison just 2 weeks prior to the election will make it even hotter.
Rape is not a conservative value.
@KarenS
Yeah, and then they go and accuse Trump of being the fascist!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Girl Reporter, there’s no doubt The Donald is a fascist, but if there’s one thing I know is true about this duopoly and the need for third parties’ intervention in our corrupt election process, it’s that things will have to get much worse before they’ll get better. And Donald Drumpf is just the guy to do it.
OK, is anyone still in denial that the university system has been taken over by Liberals completely hostile to conservative (or anyone else’s) viewpoints? They allow their personal politics to affect their jobs, to the point that students have to write from a Liberal perspective, and conservative speakers are silenced.
We are producing graduates ill prepared to function in the real world of the US, let alone travel outside its borders where no one is going to give them a bubble blower or care, frankly, if their feelings are outraged.
Karen writes, “is anyone still in denial that the university system has been taken over by Liberals completely hostile to conservative (or anyone else’s) viewpoints?”
I suppose I disagree, not that I’m in denial. I think another perspective is that more liberals are attending public schools (if that’s what you mean by the “university system”) and if you mean all post-secondary education other than vocational schools, apparently liberals are the only ones voicing complaints as conservatives like things just the way they are.
Yeah, they just shut down a Trump rally in Chicago.
They need to hear a Conservative perspective. Universities have degraded into leftwing liberal wingnut cesspools cranking out mind numbed robots that haven’t a clue about anything.
Steve, From the middle it is not conservative. From the far left it may well be. It’s certainly not BYU. Everything is relative my friend.
Nick writes, “Steve, From the middle it is not conservative. From the far left it may well be. It’s certainly not BYU. Everything is relative my friend.”
While students can ook there, that don’t make SC politically moderate.
Milo will have a particular warm reception at UCSB in May and in Madison in October, but I think that’s due to climate change.
http://yiannopoulos.net/tour/
I agree with Nick. I would add that it is a friggin disgrace to the human race. And that all Californians are clueless. Where does Trump stand on all this nonsense? Where does Hillary stand? I don’t want to vote for the wrong one.
There are just a few “conservative bastion” universities. USC may have been one of them back in the day, but not for the last few decades. I would think this story would have been a freakin’ clue!!
Nick writes, “There are just a few ‘conservative bastion’ universities. USC may have been one of them back in the day, but not for the last few decades. I would think this story would have been a freakin’ clue!!”
It’s still conservative, and that’s why this ruckus is such an “freakin'” anomaly.
Go Bruins.