Our nation is turning slowly into Greece. If you are not frightened by the idea of violent mobs negating free speech then you probably haven’t been watching the news. If you are all surprised that this is happening in America then you probably haven’t been reading my columns. I’ve been warning about it for years. Mob rule has been the norm on campus for years. Now, it is finally spilling over into the larger culture.
You may have already heard about the most recent episode of campus mob violence in response to the Republican takeover of the University of North Carolina (UNC) higher administration. The Board of Governors (BOG) is now solidly Republican and so is the new UNC system president. Consequently, we are now getting down to business and making some long overdue program cuts. Naturally, not everyone is happy about the proposed budget cuts.
During the last BOG meeting there was a complete breakdown of order. Four students were arrested in the midst of shouting and charging toward board members intent on making budget cuts that would have ultimately helped make the protesting students’ education more affordable. But reason would not prevail. They had to be forcibly removed from the room and taken into police custody.
The scene became surreal when a student actually grabbed the gavel of the chairman of the BOG and began beating on his desk while shouting uncontrollably. But of course it wasn’t their fault that they were evicted. It was the fault of the BOG – you know, the guys who were trying to keep down their education costs by making necessary budget cuts. Here’s how the protestors saw the situation:
“See what you’re allowing to happen? That’s some scary sh*t! You should all be scared! Look what you’re doing to us!”
I guess that’s what a degree in victim studies will get you. No matter how badly you behave it can all be traced back to white male Republican oppression. But the protestors did have a valid point. It really is some scary, shall we say, fecal matter.
But it really is no laughing matter. One of the leaders of the protest, student Madeline Scanlon, was charged with assault inflicting serious injury on a law enforcement officer. The only assuring thing about these violent revolutionaries is that their politics won’t let them carry guns.
Of course, few of these protestors would be able to pass the mental background checks anyway. People with degrees ending in the word “studies” are seldom emotionally capable of packing heat. Guns belong in the hands of those who make good decisions. Going into debt in pursuit of a worthless degree is always a bad decision.
So where are these kids learning to act like a bunch of deranged sociopaths and disrupt the activities of the people who are trying to make their education less expensive? I think you know the answer. It lies in the fact that a bunch of UNC faculty members interrupted the previous BOG meeting. Congratulations if you guessed the correct answer!
Zach Robinson was the leader of the incompetent faculty protest – otherwise known as the Faculty Forward Network. Given that he is a math professor you would expect him to have his numbers right. But, alas, you would be expecting too much. Robinson claimed that there has been a 30% reduction in construction in the last ten years in the UNC system. But what he did not tell you is that spending is up when looking at the overall UNC budget. Why he decided to focus on buildings is anyone’s guess. Perhaps he just has an edifice complex.
At least we can be thankful that Zach Robinson does not teach economics or logic. If he did, he would not have stated that the reduction in funding, which wasn’t actually happening, violated the “constitutional mandate to provide a free education for the people of the state – as is practical.” Put simply, anyone who thinks that spending more money on something is necessary to make it more affordable suffers from severe intellectual constipation. It simply hurts to read reasoning that bad coming from a tenured “educator.”
But Zach Robinson gave away his true motives for protesting when he recently reminded The Carolina Journal that the new UNC system president Margaret Spellings “holds a record of attacks on diversity.” More specifically he added that, “as secretary of education she neglected to apply for millions in funding for historically black colleges and universities.”
So there you have it. Spellings refusal to support racially segregated education means that we can’t trust her to promote diversity. Just wait until the Faculty Forward Network finds out that Margaret Spellings opposes building a separate Old Well for colored students. How can we move forward without bringing back segregation?
Zach Robinson closed a recent interview with The Carolina Journal by complaining that the BOG had refused to meet with the Faculty Forward Network. But I’m sure the reasons weren’t really political. It’s probably more like the reason Jodie Foster refused to meet with John W. Hinckley.
Sometimes you just have a funny feeling the relationship isn’t going anywhere.
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