At the Rochester Institute of Technology, a student government senator was impeached last month after defending the rights of others to wear Thin Blue Line masks on campus.
According to the College Fix, the effort to impeach student Senator Jacob Custer began in January after he defended the masks through the student government’s group messaging app.
In the app, one student discussed filing a bias report after a campus safety officer wore a Thin Blue Line face mask, to which Custer replied that it was “perfectly ok” for the officer to wear what they wanted.
“Wearing such masks if they want to is not counterintuitive,” wrote Custer. “It is perfectly okay for students and adults to express it since it is free speech. It is not disrespectful either. We are student government, representing all students. It is not our role to determine what idea is good or bad simply because a few members or more disagree with it and punish members of our community over something small. That is just outright censorship.”
“[I]t’s honestly humorous that a White man is going to sit here and try to tell someone of color, more specifically Black, when something is or isn’t racist,” one senator replied to Custer.
Another wrote, “Breaking news: Jacob Custer is angry and taking a stand against people of color because he isn’t allowed to disagree with the idea that Black people don’t deserve to be murdered.”
This prompted other senators to create a petition calling for Custer’s removal.
Custer’s impeachment was announced in a February 26 email to students from RIT President David Munson, who said the impeachment decision will be reviewed for any violations of the university’s free speech policies.
“Earlier today, we learned that the Student Government Senate voted to uphold the Standards Review Board’s decision to impeach an elected member of the Student Government Senate,” wrote Munson. We felt strongly that it was proper and necessary for the Student Government to follow and complete the process outlined in their Student Government Bylaws.
“However, the question of whether the decision may have violated university policy C.11, protecting free speech and expression, has been raised,” wrote Munson.
“As is always the case, the RIT President’s Office reserves the right to review any decision that may violate RIT policy. To ensure that no RIT policies have been violated, I will be assembling a Review Panel, which will include members of the RIT Board of Trustees and others, to review the evidence and decisions from the Standards Review Board and the appeal process.”
For the full report, click HERE.
University of Chicago Students Start Newspaper to Fight Cancel Culture
Two students at the University of Chicago have created a digital newspaper to fight back against cancel culture on campus.
Audrey Unverferth and Evita Duffy wanted to highlight conservative and libertarian voices that are very much under attack by leftist ideology on campus right now. Their motto is “Outthink the mob,” with a mission that reads “We demand not be coddled. Embracing the experience of unfettered inquiry and free expression is precisely the point of these years of intense study.”
The website caught the attention of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who lauded the creation of a “new journal from students who refuse to be cancelled” in a column earlier this week.
“Self-censorship on campus has really become a sickness. I’ve experienced cancel culture, so has Audrey and other people we know, and at one point this summer, we said we are done,” Duffy told “Fox & Friends” host Steve Doocy on Thursday.
The students launched the website “to give people the courage to actually say what they think in the classroom, which is supposed to be the one place where you are supposed to think for yourself and have open debate,” Duffy explained.
Unverferth said a majority of the politically vocal student body on campus is “not supportive of our speech.”
Unfortunately as with most people who speak out, the girls have had their fair share of hate but Duffy said, “I think what is more important than all the hate that we get from students is the amount of beautiful messages that we get from students and professors actually who are so happy that we are doing this, and giving them the courage to stand up.”
Make sure to check out their website.
Cancel Culture Continues: Disney+ Removes Peter Pan, Dumbo from Kid’s Profile Accounts
Cancel culture’s latest victims include the films Dumbo, Peter Pan, Swiss Family Robinson and The Aristocats.
The Washington Examiner reports that Disney+ has removed the movies from children’s profile accounts and added warnings for adults due to the portrayal of offensive stereotypes in the films.
Disney says Dumbo was removed because, “The crows and musical number pay homage to racist minstrel shows, where white performers with blackened faces and tattered clothing imitated and ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations. The leader of the group in Dumbo is Jim Crow, which shares the name of laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States.”
As far as Peter Pan goes, “the film portrays Native people in a stereotypical manner that reflects neither the diversity of Native peoples nor their authentic cultural traditions. It shows them speaking in an unintelligible language and repeatedly refers to them as ‘redskins,’ an offensive term. Peter and the Lost Boys engage in dancing, wearing headdresses and other exaggerated tropes.”
In the Aristocats, “the (Siamese) cat (Shun Gon) is depicted as a racist caricature of East Asian peoples with exaggerated stereotypical traits such as slanted eyes and buck teeth.”
According to the Daily Caller, the warning message that appears before the movies on adult accounts states:
“This program includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures. These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now. Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together. Disney is committed to creating stories with inspirational and aspirational themes that reflect the rich diversity of the human experience around the globe…”
