What began at Atlanta’s Emory University has become an epidemic: liberal students freaking out that fellow students would actually support GOP frontrunner Donald Trump!
Last week I wrote about the initial incident at Emory that had frightened students begging University President Jim Wager to do something. (I just want to point out that Trump’s supporters didn’t go crying to the authorities when they noticed all the “Feel the Bern” ads around campus.)
Forget about freedom of speech. President Wagner actually launched an effort to find whoever is responsible for the chalk messages and promised to send them through the “conduct violation process.” All for spreading a little pro-Trump sentiment.
At the University of Kansas, “VOTE TRUMP 2016” and “TRUMP 2016” chalk messages are sowing panic among the school’s liberal population. Similar messages were spotted at the University of Michigan, along with a giant message which read “STOP ISLAM” in pink chalk.
Things are a little more serious at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition to pro-Trump messages, students (or others) scrawled “Obama is a Muslim,” “Trump build the wall 2016,” “the wall just got 10 feet higher,” and even “Muhammd f***ed children.”
Many more universities throughout the nation are “under attack” by pro-Trump chalk messages that have leftwing students distraught. “It concerns me to have families and potential incoming students not want to enroll into our beautiful campus due to hateful speech they may see while they walk around,” says a UCSB student.
As someone who attended a Big 10 school in the Midwest, I can tell you for a fact that messages – chalk and otherwise – are not a rare sight on a campus tour. It’s just that for once it’s not liberal students writing them.
Students at the University of Michigan actually called the police when they found pro-Trump and anti-Islam messages. A Scripps College, the message “#Trump2016” was condemned as “racist” and “completely unacceptable.” Does this mean that expressing one’s political views is considered unacceptable at today’s colleges?
The drama still hasn’t cooled at Emory, where 40 students staged a protest urging the school administration to “decry the support for this fascist, racist candidate.”
President Jim Wagner made a show of scrawling his own chalk message “Emory stands for free expression,” but the school released a statement saying that pro-Trump messages represent “values regarding diversity and respect that clash with Emory’s own.
Donald Trump’s social media director Dan Scavino is loving the publicity. He encourages the chalk messages and has been using Twitter to share photos. He even promises to show the best messages to the man himself.
Author’s Note: Backlash against these “special snowflakes” from Atlanta has become a national movement. I can’t wait to see what happens as the presidential race progresses…it almost makes me wish I’m back in college.