The fine folks at Project Veritas have a new video out, and it showcases the absurd lengths that campus liberals are going to combat “microaggression.” From Campus Reform:
Administrators at Vassar College agreed to personally shred a pocket Constitution after an undercover reporter posing as a student complained that she felt “triggered” by its distribution on campus, while professors at Oberlin College confided that they shared the reporter’s misgivings about the founding document.
The video was produced by Project Veritas, a non-profit established by conservative journalist James O’Keefe, and employs a similar style to the undercover ACORN videos that first brought him to prominence.
“Honestly, can we just like destroy… is there a shredder or something? I think it might be really therapeutic.” Tweet This
“Last week something kinda happened on campus that kind of really upset me and I ended up having a panic attack,” the reporter tells Vassar College Assistant Director of Equal Opportunity Kelly Grab. “It’s just I’ve been kind of hiding out in my room ever since kind of scared, so, finally somebody told me I should maybe come talk to you about it and see if there’s anything that can happen or anything … They were handing the Constitution out on campus.”
“Oh, CATO Institute,” Grab murmurs while looking the booklet over.
“They were handing it out and as soon as I saw it you know I started to not be able to breathe, hyperventilating,” the reporter elaborated. “My vision went blurry and I just—kind of just lost control.”
After establishing that the reaction was triggered merely by the offering of copies of the Constitution and not by anything the group had said, Grab offers her sympathies to the reporter.
“And so what I think you’re sharing with me is that your interaction in receiving this was harming, right?” Grab confirms. “And that’s what we certainly want to avoid; we don’t want to limit people in exchanging ideas or having opposing viewpoints, but when it’s disruptive or causing harm…”
“Yeah, which I think the Constitution does,” the reporter interjects. “I mean, it’s not just me, it’s—I mean I thought that Vassar wanted to create like a safe place here, you know a place that … where students could walk around and not be scared of seeing discriminating things on campus.”
Noting that “I’m sure there are also some people who, who maybe don’t understand the impact that this might have on folks,” Grab asks the reporter whether there is anything that can be done to create an “educational moment” regarding the issue.
“Yeah, I guess, maybe,” the reporter responds, suggesting that “maybe the Constitution should be removed from campus permanently.”
Grab stops short of endorsing that idea, but asks the reporter if there is anything she can do with the copy of the Constitution that was brought into the office.
“Honestly, can we just like destroy—like is there a shredder or something? Like I think it might be really therapeutic,” the reporter offers.
“Cathartic … Yes, I think we have a shredder in the front office there,” Grab replies. “Did you want to do it with me?”
The video then show Grab and the reporter enter another office, where Grab proceeds to shred the entire Constitution, page by page.
College campuses were once a place where exceptional young Americans went to discuss great and controversial ideas. The hope was that four years of rigorous study would produce a well rounded student competent and confident enough to navigate the world in all of its complexity. A college education was thought to give those who had it an expanded understanding of the universe.
In the 60s, the hippies took over. First through tantrum, and then through tenure, liberals in academia were able to crowd conservatives and ideas they found anathema to diversity out of the system, replacing controversial discussions with broad curriculums meant to indoctrinate students in the worst of cultural relativism, Marxism, and other such silly “isms” that have no practical real world application. When this was met with a backlash and a growing campus conservative movement, these same liberals who had once advocated for radical inclusion of ideas on the college campus sought to stifle that expression. Rather than sticking to the free speech absolutist ideals they once cherished, they explained that certain forms of speech were based on hateful assumptions and were not worthy of conisderation. If certain students wanted to express these hateful ideals, they were more than welcome to, they just ahd to do it…over there, out of the way, quietly. As time went on the list of things that were deemed hateful grew, as did the list of groups who might be offended. Then we heard about microaggression. Pretty soon, there was no one left who wouldn’t be offended.
The result of their efforts to marginalize dissent is what’s above. Both Vassar and Oberlin are considered upper tier American universities, and faculty members responded to this absurd, made up panic attack as if it was something they see every day. One could almost imagine what the administrator was holding back:
“Oh, the Constitution made you upset? That’s nothing. Last week a student slipped into a catatonic state three pages into the Odyssey.”
Even worse, these administrators- charged with molding young minds for the real world- made no effort to forcefully explain to this student that a paralyzing fear of small paper pamphlets is not a marketable asset. Instead, they accommodated them, reinforcing the legitimacy of their incredibly unreasonable reaction. Lending their credibility to this sort of millenial tantrum is more than a moderate disservice.Parents that are paying obscene amounts of money for these schools, and students incurring massive amounts of debt to attend them- should wonder what the hell they’re getting themselves into.
AAN Staff
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