University Bans Bristol, Spreads Oppression, Bigotry, Hate

The message is, “Don’t bother coming, Bristol, or we’ll shout you down..."
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Jonathon Burns imagines a scenario in which Washington University’s student government had treated Al Sharpton the way it treated Bristol Palin:

Sharpton would OWN the media cycle. He’d have the heads of the entire Washington University administration. He’d demand to speak. He’d demand a higher honorarium. He’d demand greater minority employment, and a Wash U contribution to Sharpton’s National Action Network. Plus, he’d want public apologies from dozens of people, sensitivity training for the student government, and a host of other minor concessions. He’d publicly embarrass the students and the school for their patent racism.

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Millions of college students have been indoctrinated with the importance of diversity – so long as that diversity includes approved races, ethnicities, political ideologies, backgrounds, etc. If you’re conservative, from a rural area, and you’re supporting abstinence, well, let’s just say that kind of diversity isn’t desired.

No, instead of supporting diversity, the celebrated ideal of college land, let’s applaud and bow to bigotry.

And of course the Establishment Media is in lock step behind the bigots. Huffington Post and St. Louis’ own Riverfront Times each attacked Bristol (instead of the bigots).

Let’s not kid ourselves, here. what has transpired at Wash U is nothing short of bigotry and hate.

The leftists are attempting to cloak that bigotry and hate by arguing that that their main reason for banning Bristol is that they consider her speakers fee to be too expensive. But Burns refudiates that lie by pointing out that Gloria Steinem, whose usual fee is $20,000, plus two round trip first class tickets, was brought to Washington University to speak last spring:

No, these antics by a pocket of the student body weren’t about money. They were about shutting down, boxing out and otherwise suppressing Bristol. They were about preventing a point of view from being expressed on their campus simply because they didn’t like the Bristol’s ethnicity. So they decided to use heavy intimidation.

We disagree with Burns on one minor point. Bristol's ethnicity has nothing to do with it. Her surname and her point of view, on the other hand, have everything to do with it. If her name were Bristol Boxer or Bristol Biden, and she had intended to speak against abstinence, she would have been welcomed by campus "progressives" with open arms.

But such supposition and imagination have no place in the 1972 world of campus radicalism these leftists live in. Back here in the real world, Bristol's attorney issued this statement:

"Bristol was invited to speak with college students as part of a panel. Evidently she has now been disinvited because of apparent concerns by some vocal members of the undergraduate community.”

“Bristol is deeply disappointed that an institution that publicly claims to 'listen to diverse and sometimes conflicting perspectives, to contribute rigorous academic standards and unbiased scholarship to discussions, and to encourage a civil discourse in which a pluralistic society can respectfully address complex and difficult issues' would withdraw an invitation to a speaker because of 'uproar' over their assumed content of her message or even worse, because of her last name."

- JP

John Hayward: Bristol Palin Is Uninvited

Campus liberals could teach Hosni Mubarak about suppressing dissent
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John Hayward weighs in on the recent episode of what Jonah Goldberg rightly calls Liberal Fascism at Washington University that we wrote about here and here:

The nominal reason given by the campus conformity police was that inviting Palin to speak would be too expensive.

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A November 2010 report from the Student Life newspaper at Washington University said that the Green Action environmentalist group paid disgraced Obama cabinet member Van Jones a $5000 honorarium, which is the maximum allowed for appeals made over the summer. Green Action tried to get another $2500 for him, but the Student Union Treasury voted them down. If Van Jones is worth five to seven thousand dollars, Bristol Palin for $20,000 is the deal of the century...

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Another claim made by the campus left is that Palin was “too controversial” to speak, a consideration that obviously doesn’t apply to people like Van Jones. You can see how a young mother discussing the perils of teen pregnancy would be more controversial than the views of a self-described Communist who was run out of the most radical Administration in modern history, because he entertained the notion that George Bush was the real villain behind the 9/11 attacks.

Elevating this line of reasoning to totalitarian art, Sean Janda wrote in Student Life that Palin’s appearance would “fundamentally shift the discourse that this event will create. Instead of discussing issues regarding abstinence in college, students will discuss the suitability of Ms. Palin as a keynote speaker. In this way, Ms. Palin’s appearance will suppress dialogue about the issues that Sex Week is meant to address and, instead, spark dialogue about Treasury’s use of its money.”

In other words, because the campus left is mad with hatred at the Palin family, her presence would be too much of a distraction. Their resistance automatically makes her too controversial to be allowed to speak, which means anyone they really dislike would instantly hit the same level of controversy, and be silenced. I don’t know what else is being taught at Washington U, but Sean Janda seems to understand fascism pretty well.

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Palin’s place on the Student Sexual Responsibility Week panel will be taken by Dr. Katie Plax, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Washington University. I doubt she’ll pull the kind of crowds Bristol would have, since she’ll be walking across the quad to deliver her presentation. A May 2009 profile of Dr. Plax from the Washington University Newsroom mentions that she is the recipient of a two-year fellowship from the Soros Foundation, and actively campaigned for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. She sounds like someone the campus-left cowards will be more comfortable with.

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h/t: Cubachi

- JP

Leftists refuse to allow Bristol to speak at Washinton U. (Updated)

Free speech loses another round on St. Louis campus
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At Washington University in St. Louis, a campus with a history of First Amendment abuses, the American Constitution lost another round this week as radical leftist students using intimidation tactics have managed to get Bristol Palin's scheduled speech and participation in a panel discussion cancelled.

Washington University's Student Health Advisory Committee had extended an invitation to Palin, a spokeswoman to prevent teen pregnancy, to speak on abstinence as part of the university's Student Sexual Responsibility Week.

But because of a growing controversy among undergraduates over the decision to pay for her talk with student-generated funds, the advisory committee and Palin decided Thursday night "that the message that they intended on sharing would be overshadowed by controversy," according to a university statement.

Scott Elman, president of the advisory committee, said the decision to halt Palin's appearance as a keynote speaker was "100 percent mutual" between Palin and the committee. Elman added that he was very disappointed that students weren't more open to having Palin speak.

As soon as Bristol's appearance was announced, the totalitarian left organized protests, created Facebook pages, stomped their feet and whined that they would hold their collective breath until they turned into blue babies, as we reported Thursday. The tactics worked, and liberty died another little death, one of just many that we have witnessed at the country's leftist dominated universities over the past six decades. Washington U. is one of the most radically left of America's campuses, with a history of free speech abuses.

In October of 2007, antiwar student activists managed to suppress free speech debates which were intended to be part of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week by plastering American University's campus with fake anti-Muslim posters to support their bogus charges of a "climate of hate" which they blamed on the local chapter of the Young America's Foundation. although the leftist students later admitted that the posters "a hoax," they nevertheless manged to silence the conservative minority at Washington U. The YAF students, in fact, were subjected to ridicule and abuse, while the instigators got off scot free.

In November of 2009, a campus exhibit which exposed the realities of socialism and communism staged by The Young Americans For Liberty was shut down after complaints were lodged by Marxist Professors. The display was removed from American University's campus, ironically, on the Day of Freedom in memory of the tearing down of the Wall in Berlin.

In December of last year, at an event with avowed communist and former Obama administration "Green Czar" Van Jones which was billed as "open to the public," a citizen journalist who was there to ask Jones questions was harassed by University officials, roughed up and had his camera confiscated.

Update: Jennifer at Cubachi notes:

"The irony that liberal students who are supporters of big government programs are protesting because of costs."

- JP

Dana Loesch: St. Louis Leftists Stage Boycott of Bristol Palin Speech

Someone Missed the “New Tone” Memo
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Well, that didn't take long. When we mentioned yesterday that Bristol Palin is scheduled for a Feb. 7 speech and a seat at the table for a panel discussion on abstinence at Washington University, we predicted that some Haterade-guzzling moonbats would likely use what was intended to be a forum on sexual responsibility to attack her. As Dana Loesch reports, the political opportunists on the left are already foaming at the mouth:

Protests are organized and two Facebook pages have been created. Above all else the protest against Bristol Palin stems from no other reason than her last name is Palin.

That’s it.

No one knows what sort of speaking fee Palin is collecting yet some left-leaning students immediately assumed it was eleventy frillion dollars and are attempting to use that as justification for their protest – except when you read the comments on Facebook or in the student paper it’s always followed up with some politically-charged remark about her being Palin’s daughter. Also, some in the community don’t believe in redemption or grace, thus think that once you err you are forever doomed...

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Sadly because her mother is who she is, some are seeking to silence Bristol Palin’s voice. It’s bullying, plain and simple, all while the “It Gets Better” anti-bullying campaign is all the rage in Hollywood.

Apparently that doesn’t apply to conservative youth. And especially if you mom’s name is Sarah Palin.

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The liberal view of a "living" constitution means freedom of speech for everyone who agrees with them, but they don't want anyone else to be heard. The totalitarian left is Democrat Partying like it's 1972. But it's not. It's 2011, and they're not reading the memos.

- JP

Bristol in the lion's den February 7

“We thought a big name like Bristol’s would help to start a dialogue”
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One of the things we admire most about Bristol Palin is that she, like her mom, is fearless. She will need that famous Palin spunk when the visits Washington University in St. Louis next month:

Bristol Palin will address Washington University as the keynote speaker for this year’s Sexual Responsibility Week.

Student Union Treasury on Tuesday approved a $20,000 appeal by the Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC) to sponsor a four-person panel featuring Palin. The appeal was initially set at $25,000 and renegotiated.

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The panel will also include representatives from the Catholic Student Center, Missouri Right to Life, and Planned Parenthood and will address the issue of abstinence in a college setting.

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The event will be held in Graham Chapel at 7 p.m. on Feb. 7. to end the first day of Sex Week. The week, which seeks to start an open sexual dialogue, encourage students to experiment with sexual viewpoints that differ from their own and to provide wide-reaching sexual education, will continue through Feb. 12.

The event will begin with a 25-minute speech by Palin on her life story to be followed by an hour-long panel discussion and a half hour question-and-answer session. A reception will be held after the question and answer to allow students to interact with Palin one-on-one.

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By hosting Palin as the keynote speaker, SHAC hoped to appease concerns with previous Sex Weeks while also highlighting this year’s series.

“We thought a big name like Bristol’s would help to start a dialogue,” SHAC President Scott Elman said. “We also wanted to target abstinence because SHAC and Sex Week have been criticized for being too liberal and too one-dimensional, and that the abstinence conversation hasn’t been brought up.”

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Too liberal? Washington University? Say it isn't so, SHAC...

Seriously, it is to the student organization's credit to try to find some balance in the events it sponsors. And it is to Bristol's credit that she is willing to put herself in a setting where some hateful leftists in the peanut gallery will use the opportunity to attack her. But the same Lord who helps us pick ourselves up when we stumble is also our Shield against those who make themselves our enemies.

- JP