Wesleyan University student activists have stolen half the print run of the campus paper, the Wesleyan Argus, and vilified and threatened a student columnist on social media, after the student dared to question whether the Black Lives Matter movement is “actually achieving anything positive.”
That student, Bryan Stascavage, is a military veteran who served two tours of duty in Iraq. In his opinion piece published September 14 in the Argus, titled “Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think,” Stascavage questions the true aims of the movement and whether it is partly responsible for the recent rise in crime and spate of violence against police officers.
Stascavage’s views, as put forth in his column, would actually be considered quite moderate anywhere but a college campus. He recounts a conversation with a supporter of Black Lives Matter and how it helped to inform his views. Answering his own question about whether the movement is “actually achieving anything positive” he responds:
There is evidence to support both views. Police forces around the country are making more of an effort to be more transparent, have undergone investigations to root out racist officers and policies, and have forced the conversation to the front pages after being buried on the back pages for far too long.
On the other hand, following the Baltimore riots, the city saw a big spike in murders. Good officers, like the one I talked to, go to work every day even more worried that they won’t come home. The officer’s comments reminded me of what soldiers used to say after being hit with IEDs in Iraq. Police forces with a wartime-like mentality are never a good thing.
Stascavage concludes his column by questioning where the movement is going:
At some point Black Lives Matter is going to be confronted with an uncomfortable question, if they haven’t already begun asking it: Is this all worth it? Is it worth another riot that destroys a downtown district? Another death, another massacre? At what point will Black Lives Matter go back to the drawing table and rethink how they are approaching the problem?
Yet as Stascavage found out, on Wesleyan’s campus even daring to raise such questions is verboten.
In an article recounting his ordeal for The College Fix, Stascavage describes what happened next:
The Wesleyan feed for the anonymous social media app Yik Yak was flooded with messages of both hate and support for my column, and for me personally. Some commentors said they were stealing copies of the Argus and trashing them.
I polled the editors for how many copies were stolen. They estimated half of that print run of 1,000 copies. Some said they saw newspapers being burned or shredded.
The online comments on my Argus column made my jaw drop. I was called a racist and trash. Some said my article was so offensive that it shouldn’t have been published. Nevertheless I engaged with some critics in the comments.
Hostility toward me hasn’t been limited to cyberspace. People whispered “racist” or other pleasantries under their breath when I passed. In a cafe, an activist berated me in public for 15 minutes.
Instead of standing by their columnist, the Argus published an apology claiming that his column “cites inaccurate statistics and twists facts,” without providing any specifics as to which statistics and facts might be misleading. The editors also promised to publish a “Black Out” issue of the paper written only by students of color and texted Stascavage stating that they didn’t think he should be fired but “but we do want to figure out a way to ease the controversy of having you stay on our staff.” The student government got into the act and debated whether they should fully defund the paper.
This was too much even for the leftist administrators at Wesleyan who issued a statement defending Stascavage’s right to free speech.
Stascavage describes how the administration came to his defense:
President Michael Roth, Provost Joyce Jacobsen and Vice President for Equity and Inclusion Antonio Farias wrote a message in support of my right to publish dissenting opinions, particularly reminding students “there is no right to not be offended.”
They wrote: “Censorship diminishes true diversity of thinking; vigorous debate enlivens and instructs.” The chair of the classical studies department posted a comment expressing his “full agreement,” while a student bizarrely claimed that my column “actively silences other speech.”
Though he appreciates the administration’s defense of his right to free speech, Stascavage writes that his hopes “that it was still possible to have an exchange of ideas between liberals and vastly outnumbered conservatives” have proven fruitless.
He cautions:
Your campus might be next. Administrators are confounded by this attempted cultural terraforming, which poisons the free exchange of ideas and destroys the mission of liberal arts colleges.
