In an academic version of the debate raging over “TERFS” and figures like J.K. Rowling, Wellesley College President Paula A. Johnson is being condemned as “transphobic” after she opposed a referendum to admit trans male students at the all-women school. While the school previously admitted trans women, Johnson is drawing the line on admitting “nonbinary” or trans male applicants. The students, however, approved the referendum.
The college has long billed itself as a place for “women who will make a difference in the world” with graduates like Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright. However, the referendum would admit all transgender and nonbinary students.
That was too far for Johnson who wrote:
Wellesley was founded on the then-radical idea that educating women of all socioeconomic backgrounds leads to progress for everyone. As a college and community, we continue to challenge the norms and power structures that too often leave women, and others of marginalized identities, behind. We are not a “historically women’s college,” a term that only applies to women’s colleges that have made the decision to enroll men. We have chosen a different path, one that aligns with peer institutions including Barnard, Smith, and Bryn Mawr colleges.
What does Wellesley mean by “a women’s college”? In accordance with our admission policy, Wellesley admits applicants who identify and live consistently as women, regardless of the gender they were assigned at birth…
The reaction was the Rowling treatment. The student newspaper led the condemnation of Johnson:
We disapprove of and entirely disagree with President Johnson’s email. As journalists, we understand the power of rhetoric to do good or harm. The need for newspapers to take stances on their editorial standards is more important than ever, as demonstrated by the harm caused by The New York Times’ anti-trans pivot. In the past year, the Times has published “more than 15,000 words’ worth of front-page stories asking whether care and support for young trans people might be going too far or too fast.”…
College administration and the Board of Trustees have once again monopolized conversations about Wellesley’s community and future, conversations that should be led by students, who make up the majority of the College community. We also want to remind the Wellesley community that President Johnson is the spokesperson for the Board of Trustees, which must be held equally responsible for the College’s transphobic rhetoric.
Wellesley student editors previously opposed certain speech deemed harmful and intolerable. The Wellesley News published a column entitled “Free Speech Is Not Violated At Wellesley.” The editors heralded the Wellesley students who refuse to respect the free speech rights of those deemed to be hateful. Simply defining such people as unworthy of free speech protections then allowed the editors to become actual advocates of mob action to silence them:
“Shutting down rhetoric that undermines the existence and rights of others is not a violation of free speech; it is hate speech. The founding fathers put free speech in the Constitution as a way to protect the disenfranchised and to protect individual citizens from the power of the government.”
So speech deemed as “undermining the existence and rights of others” is all that is needed to relieve the conscience of these students and allow them to indulge in their desire to forcibly silence those with whom they disagree. There is no attempt, of course, to define what constitutes speech that “undermines.” If those people still insist on being heard, the editors declared that “hostility may be warranted.”
Johnson now finds herself on the wrong side of the academic mob. For years, academics have allowed a culture of orthodoxy to take hold on our campuses, including attacks on free speech values. Many administrators and faculty have remained silent as conservative, libertarian, or dissenting faculty have been investigated and even fired. This is why French journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan famously observed during the French Revolution that “like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”
Free speech apparently does promote violence, by people opposed to free speech.
“As journalists”…. 😂.
There was a time when I thought political correctness would be the death of us. Those were the days my friend.
When a “real” woman gets raped by a “pretend” woman,, they will blame the “real” woman. The lefts war on women continues
Who will get blamed? It will be Trump of course.
Exactly what is so bad about being transphobic?
Note to all women. If you enroll in this left-wing $#!+hole, and you end up getting raped by a transgender male posing as a woman, you deserve what you get.
No woman deserves to be raped. No man either.
Agreed. No one deserves raped. That being said, ladies, you have been warned. Don’t intentionally Put Yourself In Harm’s Way. These people are mentally deranged. A dude playing dress up in mommy’s clothes, is still a dude. You can’t change your age, you can’t change your dna. You can do cosmetic changes but you’re still the sex/gender you were born with. Complaints? Talk to god.
DrDarylJames:
More young people are on the Left political spectrum than not. They tend to exclusively consume media content that reaffirms this political identity. They are not receiving any warnings, whatsoever, in the news and media they consume. Since the young generation does not appear to value free speech of those with opposing opinions, they are unlikely to read a free speech legal blog like Turley’s.
I wish they would. They have no idea.
‘…deserve it…’ is a bit harsh, but it might be fair to say, “What’d you expect?”
Liberal wokes do
No, no one deserves to get sexually assaulted. There is tremendous propaganda that men can just decide to be women, and then are, in fact, women. Many young women enrolling in universities are naive about what this entails until they find themselves in the humiliating position of having to undress in front of a grown, naked man, in order to play sports. Those women who are not on sports teams might have no idea of the risks of allowing men into women’s spaces.
There were safety reasons to create these spaces in the first place, which still apply.
For instance, some women would think that transgender men who say they believe they are women should go to women’s prisons. They’ll feel compassion for the inmate, thinking of how incredibly dangerous it would be for an effeminate man to go to a men’s prison. Sexual assault on male prisoners is rather infamous. They might be surprised at the repeated occurrences of sexual assault and pregnancies that then result. This is because so many people don’t make the connection that a man can just be pretending to be a woman in order to gain access to women’s spaces for nefarious reasons. In addition, even if a man really does think he’s a woman, that has nothing to do with sexuality. He can still be attracted to women, and have male genitalia. Give him then access to a women’s prison, and the inevitable result would be sex, whether voluntary or involuntary.
The nature of the widespread propaganda out there seems to indicate that everyone who claims to be transgender is a good person. Strange, as gender and sexual orientation have nothing to do with whether someone is a good or bad person.
The proliferation of delusional identities:
“[G]ender identities including, but not limited to, [trans and nonbinary], genderfluid, third-gender, amalgagender, demigender, bi-gender, pansgender, and a-gender. Pronouns can include, but are not limited to: He/She, They/Them, Ze/Hir (Ze, hir, hir, hirs, hirself), Ze/Zir (Ze, zir, zir, zirs, ze), Spivak (Ey, em, eir, eirs, ey), Ve (Ve, ver, vis, vis, verself), and Xe (Xe, xem, xyr, xyrs, xe).” (JT)
If you want to create a cult, here’s one of your tactics. You spread “extreme identity confusion:”
“Undue Influence does NOT erase the person’s old identity but rather creates a new identity to suppress the old one. After different types of manipulation, the creation of a new identity is done step-by-step by formal indoctrination sessions and informally by members, videos, games, movies, publications, and social/digital media. Behavior modification techniques are employed, such as rewards/punishments, thought-stopping, and control of environment (isolation or restriction of access to others). And then the new identify is reinforced and the old identify suppressed.” (Steven A. Hassan. PhD; http://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-mind/202106/understanding-cults-the-basics)
Want your own cult of “ze?” Spread pronoun confusion.
Or maybe a cult of “nonbinary.” Spread gender confusion.
Looking for target-rich environments? Try the universities.
Spot on. I worked for a counseling agency in the eighties for people coming out of cults and transitioning back into reality. Although the ideologies and theologies were different back then in some of the cults, the brain-washing, indoctrination, and mind control techniques were exactly the same. Young people were most vulnerable because, like today, many were away from home for the first time and without that system of support and, hopefully, wisdom, to warn and educate them about the dangers of the cults. Most vulnerable in that age-range were, and still are, teens. Teens are at the peek of vulnerability to peer pressure. There tends to be much more emotional and social pressure to be “in with the ‘in’ crowd” (now called FOMO) that is always especially potent in that age group. And cult leaders know exactly how to exploit all of the above.
“FOMO”
I had never heard that expression. Thanks.
FOMO = Fear Of Missing Out
It became even more of a popular saying after the Covid lockdowns. Plus, highly edited and curated lifestyles on Instagram and Twitter seem to show everyone living a jetset, idealized life-style that sets an impossibly high standard.
Biological men have won Woman of the Year awards, broken Female Athlete records, and now they want to barge into women’s schools.
This is biological men pushing and shoving their way into women’s locker rooms, showers, sports teams, battered women shelters, and schools. When women and girls complain they feel humiliated or unsafe chaining in front of male genitalia, those men tell them to shut up and keep sweet. Not only that, but they have to clap politely as biological males take women’s scholarships and win women’s athletic competitions.
Karen – and you left out women getting raped by biological men in women’s prisons.
But what I’d like to know is why “progressive” women (such as the editorialists of the Wellesley newspaper) are the ones cheering this on? They used to believed in women’s rights, but no longer. Do you have any idea why? As I mentioned below, the only reason I can come up with is that the immediate kudos they get for virtue signaling outweighs all other concerns. Do you know of another explanation?
If you are sufficiently attached to your male identity that you still have a penis, you do not belong in women’s prisons, women’s locker rooms, women’s sports. Women’s colleges.
Fear. Fear of being ostracized, of being shamed, “the Rowling Treatment “. JK Rowling has a lot of money & the wherewithal to suffer the slings & arrows. Most people can’t withstand the shunning or the loss of a job.
oldmanfromkansas:
It does seem nonsensical for progressive feminists to cheer on biological males forcing women and girls to change in front of them.
Feminists have now splintered, where those oppose biological males competing in women’s sports and using women’s locker rooms, are called TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists). So, now, they even have derogatory names for fellow feminists.
It really is strange how far Left ideology has made a clean sweep of most of Western Civilization. Canada, UK, and much of of the rest of Western Europe is in the grip of the hard Left. It was shocking when the Canadian Catholic school boy was expelled, and then arrested for trying to attend class, simply because he believed in the two biological sexes. His faith, confirmed by the Pope himself, describes two sexes as made by God. Voicing that opinion can land you in prison in Canada. All in the name of tolerance?
I beleive in this case it is a biological women, who thinks they are a man, who is living as a man, that is seeking admission to a women’s school.
Wellesey decided to accept biological men who think they are women and live as women several years ago.
All this story does is point out the absurdity of the left.
If transwomen are not free to participate as women in every aspect of life, then there’s really no such thing and man who has transitioned to become a woman.
Let one give birth through natural conception and deliver natural breast milk for nutrition.
That is one most important aspect of real natural born women everywhere.
With a roar Helen Reddy sang “I am Woman” which means nothing today. ‘Woman’ in the Woke World is meaningless.
https://youtu.be/e2HvetIkdLk
Oh, my!
Isn’t that a pretty actual American Babylon Bee girl?
THE ABSOLUTE RIGHT TO PRIVATE PROPERTY
Wellesley College is private property and only the owners may “claim and exercise” dominion.
The 5th Amendment right to private property is absolute.
The right exists under one, and only one, constitutional qualification which allows the full “taking” of private property for public use with just compensation.
Res ipsa loquitur – The thing itself speaks.
In this case, the phrase means that the 5th Amendment provides the one and only possible qualification to the right to private property, making the right immutable and, therefore, absolute.
Believe the liberal science…
Despite her courage, she is still part of the problem. In her quote, she said: “In accordance with our admission policy, Wellesley admits applicants who identify and live consistently as women, regardless of the gender they were assigned at birth…” No, it is not a matter of “identity”. Sex is a biological fact. We need to clearly state that fact and end all of the nonsense that ensues from suggesting you can think yourself out of biology. (BTW, although it has now seemingly become accepted, the term “gender” is a grammical term referring to classes of nouns, including those considered “female” or “male” in character. https://www.oed.com/viewdictionary entry/Entry/77468#:~:text=The%20state% 20of%20 being%20male,a%20result%20of%20one’s%20sex. We should use the word “sex” when we are referring to a sex.)
You are absolutely correct. The definition was distorted and celebrated by the insane and terminally ignorant left.
Believe the science…Test the DNA
Wigs, surgery and clothes are not science
No matter what city folks say from their demonic delusions,
You can geld a stallion.
But that won’t make him a mare.
You can cut a bull into a steer.
But that won’t change him into a cow.
SamFox
Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have this wish I wish tonight.
I wish I was a giraffe.
Therefore I am a giraffe.
“Turley indeed does what he criticizes others of doing . . .”
I thought that “But Johnny does it, too” went out in the third grade.
And just to show that the childish can be even more absurd: “Johnny” is not even doing it. For the distinction-impaired: Suppressing racist comments is not the same as suppressing opposing arguments.
I have not seen evidence that Turley has supressed racist comments.
I have seen little evidence he supressess uncivil comments.
Well, we have been able to deduce that Elvis Bug has posted racist comments in the past, violating the Civility Rule, and then whines about it, claiming to be the victim.
Word Press has a back end plug in that will not allow for certain words to be used or posted. It also a means to keep SPAM at bay.
Being this is the good professor’s blog, he is free to do as he pleases.
I am surprised how little action he takes against those who repeatedly attack him. Shows a level of professionalism and class those who attack him do not possess.
I am not arguing, only observing.
I beleive I have seen a few people blocked for deliberately defaming Turley.
Not just mildly criticising.
Individual posts get blocked either by WP filters or too many links or more than fair use quotes.
All that is trivial to work arround.
Regardless it is self evident that alot of racism by the left, as well as incivility is tolerated.
Oh look a censorious leftist, how fun!
The First Amendment was written to protect speech that is not popular and even repugnant. Therefore, hate speech is protected speech, like it or not. As long as it is not manifested into action. Sorry, bub. Your argument falls flat.
Please help me because I cannot keep up with the terminology.
Wellesley DOES admit people (now I see why they want to use that word) with the word “female” on their birth certificate even though those people when applying to Wellesley considered themselves male (and may have even juiced up on testoserone and had an appendage added)
BUT
The Wellesley president does NOT want to admit people with the word “male” on their birth certificate even though those people when applying to Wellesley considered themselves female (and may have even juiced up on estrogene and had an appendage removed)
OR
Does this only apply to people who kept their appendage but “identify” as female
OR
What’s TERF?
This policy clearly states that regardless of who they were prior, if they are consistently identifying as female and act according to their female identity they have no issue in allowing them to apply to the university.
“act according to their female identity”
LOL. Like shave regularly? Who’s gonna decide if they are? The left is simply a never-ending supply of moronic BS.
If they had something of value for the American people they swear to represent, you know act according to their representative identity, then maybe they wouldn’t have to continuously sell this crap so no one notices how terrible, treasonous, and moronic they truly are. Pathetic swine.
You’ve got it exactly backwards. I get confused on this myself because to me a bio-male who is acting female is a “male who is trans” and therefore should be called a “trans male”. Confusingly, the woke call this person a “trans woman” to affirm the person’s delusions.
Short answer: they already let in penises acting female – the president is rejecting vaginas who act male. Pretty messed up huh?