SOUTH CAROLINA’S FLAGSHIP “SAFE SPACE” HAS BECOME A BREEDING GROUND FOR LEFTIST REPRESSION …
The University of South Carolina bills itself as having “No Limits.” But if you’re a student looking to exercise your First Amendment right to free speech, you might want to consider looking elsewhere.
How come? Well, should you choose to attend the government-subsidized Columbia, S.C. campus, your speech will most assuredly be limited.
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), the Palmetto State’s flagship university made its 2017 list of the “ten worst colleges for free speech” in the entire nation.
South Carolina’s ranking stems in part from the school’s February 2016 crackdown of a “free speech” event sponsored by USC’s chapters of Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) and College Libertarians. The proposed “free speech zone” envisioned by these groups apparently violated the “safe space” of certain left-leaning USC snowflakes, who claimed the flyers disseminated on campus in promotion of the event were “offensive” and “triggering.”
Good God …
In response to these complaints, school officials issued a “notice of charge” letter to event organizers and initiated a discrimination investigation against them – which included the threat of expulsion.
And yes, all this was after the school originally gave students permission to disseminate these flyers.
Sheesh …
“Colleges continue to find excuses for censoring speech on campus,” FIRE’s president and CEO Greg Lukianoff said. “This list shows that any expression … is seen by some colleges as fair game for suppression. This type of censorship is not only unhealthy for institutions where debate and discussion should be paramount, but also dangerous for a free society.”
We concur … wholeheartedly.
Sadly, this isn’t the only uber-liberal national list USC has landed on in recent months. Back in December, a philosophy course at the school appeared on a list of “America’s Most Bizarre and Politically Correct College Courses.” The previous month the school’s “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” issued a press release touting its compliance with demands from liberal student groups regarding safe spaces and gender-neutral bathrooms.
Our thoughts on all this?
They are much the same as they’ve always been … namely that government has no business subsidizing higher education. Period.
“It’s simple, really: We’re happy to respect whatever ‘safe spaces’ America’s Youth Gone Mild wish to establish … as long as they (and the squishy government bureaucrats ’empowering’ them) agree to keep their grubby paws off of our wallets and pocketbooks,” we wrote last fall.
Indeed … no institution of higher education should receive a dime of taxpayer money, nor should taxpayers be forced to guarantee so much as a dime of increasingly specious student loans.
Shut the scam down. All of it. Right now.
Banner via SC.edu