How To Be A Conservative Student On A University Campus Today

It gets harder and harder to be an independent thinker in the midst of one of those indoctrination and groupthink factories known as a university. Step out of line, and at any moment someone can claim to be offended or “triggered” by something completely bland that you may have said. Next thing you know, someone will have tattled on you to the administration. And you know exactly what the administration will do: They will simultaneously mouth platitudes about “free speech” while making every kind of threat, veiled or not, to bring you into line.

Is there any way for you to come out ahead? Within the last few days, a small number of students — one at Yale and two at Arizona State — have given tutorials on how to win at this game. To be fair, these students got a big assist from the fact that the crazy leftists who run these places have gotten so confident of never facing any pushback that they no longer hesitate to engage in conduct that is completely indefensible.

Example number one for today comes from perhaps the looniest of all the loony left schools, the Yale Law School. It all started with plans by the Native American Law Students Association to co-sponsor a Constitution Day (September 17) get-together with the Federalist Society. On the 15th, a second-year law student named Trent Colbert — who is a member of both organizations and, unlike Elizabeth Warren, is actually part Cherokee — sent out this email inviting NALSA members to the event:

Before reading further, see if you can spot what about the email may be offensive to the finely tuned antennae of an uber-woke Yale Law School “diversity” monger.

Aaron Silbarum, writing on October 13 at the Washington Free Beacon, recounts what happened next:

Within minutes, the lighthearted invite had been screenshotted and shared to an online forum for all second-year law students, several of whom alleged that the term "trap house" indicated a blackface party. "I guess celebrating whiteness wasn’t enough," the president of the Black Law Students Association wrote in the forum. "Y’all had to upgrade to cosplay/black face." She also objected to the mixer’s affiliation with the Federalist Society, which she said "has historically supported anti-Black rhetoric."

Have you ever heard the term “trap house” before? I have not. Here is the first definition from the Urban Dictionary:

Originally used to describe a crack house in a shady neighborhood, the word has since been abused by high school students who like to pretend they're cool by drinking their mom's beer together and saying they're part of a "traphouse".

There are multiple other definitions, none of which mentions anything about blackface. Silbarum notes that the term was popularized starting about 2016 by a podcast called Chapo Trap House:

"Trap house" has been a term used in progressive pop culture since at least 2016, when the socialist podcast "Chapo Trap House" burst onto the scene. Hosted by three white men, the podcast has received sympathetic profiles in the New York Times, the New Yorker, and the Guardian, none of which suggest that there is anything racial about its name.

None of that stopped some eight or nine complaints promptly being made to the Yale administration to do something about Colbert. (Likely, what really set the complainers off is that one of the ethnic group associations — supposed to be reliable foot-soldiers of the left — would have the chutzpah to co-sponsor an event with the Federalist Society.). Anyway, the very next day, Colbert found himself called into a meeting with Yale Law School associate dean Ellen Cosgrove and diversity director Yaseen Eldik.

Colbert had the presence of mind to record the meeting. Good move! The Free Beacon includes the recording here, along with summaries and transcriptions of several portions. A good adjective would be “Kafkaesque.” A few notable excerpts:

5:32: Eldik says that the student's affiliation with the Federalist Society was "very triggering" for students who "already feel" that the conservative group is "oppressive to certain communities."

7:15: Eldik says his office has received complaints that the student's email was a "form of discrimination" and "psychically harmful."

14:05: Eldik says his office has received "eight or nine student complaints about this" and tells the student that the best way to make this "go away" would be an apology.

15:10: Eldik says he worries about the email affecting the student's reputation, "not just here but when you leave. You know the legal community is a small one."

The rest of it is just as bad. Basically, it’s threats, some veiled and some less so, to destroy the guy’s reputation and undermine his legal career unless he agrees to send around an apology, which of course will helpfully be drafted by the administrators.

Well, too bad, guys. He got you on tape. In his next move, Colbert declined to issue any sort of apology, and got out his story not only to the Free Beacon, but also to FIRE. Plenty of others have now also picked it up. Yale, you have been exposed as the thuggish totalitarians that you are. As to Mr. Colbert, if I were still in the big law game, I would be doing everything I could to try to recruit him. But something tells me that a Supreme Court clerkship may be in his near future.

Example number two comes from Arizona State University. There, sometime in late September, two white male students decided to go to study in something called the “Multicultural Space.” One was wearing a tee shirt that said “DID NOT VOTE FOR BIDEN”, and the other had a sticker on the back of his laptop reading “Police Lives Matter.” They were promptly confronted by several female students (not visible on camera, but from their voice inflections they would appear to be black). The following video has received more than 5 million views on Twitter:

(For some reason that does not appear to embed the Tweet here, but you can go here to view the video.)

Note that although one of the male students looks to be recording at least part of the event, the video in question appears to have been made by one of the female confronters.

-“You’re offensive. Police Lives Matter? . . . You’re making this space uncomfortable.”

-“You’re white. Do you understand what a multicultural space is? It means you’re not being centered.”

-“This is the violence that ASU does, and this is the type of people that they protect.”

-“This white man thinks he can take up our space. And this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with this shit.”

-“We’re asking you to leave if you have any consideration for people of color and who are marginalized.”

The two male students remain seated and never raise their voices during the whole confrontation. One of the them at one point responds simply (and very calmly), “I’m going to sit here the whole time and you can find somebody to kick me out.”

The video went viral, and had exactly the opposite effect from what was intended by the person who took it. A representative in the Arizona legislature, after viewing the video, put together a statement on the situation that has since been signed by at least 20 other legislators. Excerpt:

It has come to light following the racially-motivated harassment of two students and their subsequent removal from one of the campus’ study facilities that ASU has allowed a culture of institutionalized racism and neo-segregation to take hold on its campus. . . . The racially-charged removal of these students from the multicultural center begs the question of why Arizonans are being forced to spend tens, potentially hundreds, of millions of their hard-earned tax dollars on a building at a public university that some of our citizens are not allowed to use? . . . As a member of Arizona’s House Committee on Appropriations, I will be fighting alongside the undersigned Legislators to get to the bottom of this and take the appropriate action in the upcoming budget.

The threat of repercussions via the budget ought to get their attention. Not that Republican-dominated state legislatures have been notably effective up to now in policing ultra-leftism at public university campuses. But maybe that will now begin. And kudos to these two young men for going where they were clearly allowed but not wanted, remaining calm, standing their ground, and publicizing the event to shame the loony left.

I cannot believe the speed at which the left has come out in the open and put their craziness on full display.

They know their time may be short and they know their time is now.

The writing is on the wall for them.

The special elections in congress has not gone their way and the Chicoms can't handle that many Dominion voting machines to switch things the way they want.

Pelosi may soon be out and with that their house of cards go falling down.

The left are also exposing themselves as filthy racists and hypocrites.

Imagine the outcry if the races were reversed, the two students would have been expelled immediately and we’d never hear the end of it from the media.

Any “space” that others can’t use in a public-funded university need to be decommissioned “Toot Sweet.”

Pelosi may soon be out and with that their house of cards go falling down

Listen, Captain "Obvious", if you think disappearing a few sick old drunks like Pelosi and HRC and a senile shell of a man like Biden will cause the Left to collapse, you don't understand revolutions.

Those three are the cause of NOTHING. They have served to COVER UP the real revolutionaries, who can do their work out of the public eye.

Eliminate Soros, Pelosi, and Biden (which nature will do soon enough) and things will get suddenly WORSE, not better.

“You’re white. ....“This white man thinks he can take up our space. And this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with this shit.”>

Let's change the scenario and wording, shall we?

Two whites encounter two blacks sitting in the library minding their own business, trying to study and the following 'encounter' occurs:

“You’re black. ....“This black man thinks he can take up our space. And this is why we need a multicultural space, because they think they can get away with this shit.”>

What do you think would happen to the two white students?

Most likely:

immediate expulsion

national media exposure with their faces prominently diplayed for days on end

forced to endure humiliating and withering condemnations

brought up on charges of "hate speech."

labeled as racists for life.

Were the black students involved in the incident even called out? Did anything ever happen to them?

Didn't think so.

Like I said: Racist and Hypocritical.

Try again:

1) Define “racist”.

2) Second question was too complicated, I guess. Define “hypocritical”.

You are throwing the enemy’s words around as if you agree with the false meanings they have given those words, and you agree that those words thrown back in their faces will tag the enemy as bad.

I don’t agree with the commonly used leftist definition of “racist”, which means, you are noticing that different races are different. To notice that different races are different is not a bad thing, it’s a sign of intelligence and discernment.

I also don’t agree that loving your own people means you “hate” anyone else.

Hypocrisy is professing one thing while doing another. These leftists are also often accused here of having a “double standard”.

These are also false. They have a single standard for actions - if it’s bad for America and good for the revolution, it’s good. If it’s good for America and bad for the revolution, it’s bad.

There’s not a thing in the world wrong with blacks in Universities wanting their own spaces. It’s a manifestation of 1) Noticing that blacks and whites are different; and 2) wanting to be with their own people, whom they love.

This is not “racist”, it’s a perfectly normal human emotion which most people on the planet, most of the time, share.

Good article. The part about defending the indefensible is definitely relevant in a time where the Loundon School District covered up for a rapist and and had the victim’s father arrested rather than admit the existence of a single sexual predator who identified as trans.

I don’t get the whole “you’re taking up space” thing. I take up a certain amount of space typical for someone my height and weight. I would take up the same amount of space if I were black. It’s just a non-so-subtle hint that white people are not welcome in the spaces dedicated to ALL races and cultures.

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