STURGE: Higher ed has normalized political violencehttps://www.campusreform.org/article/sturge-higher-ed-normalized-political-violence/28636Following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, left-wing educators are openly mocking and celebrating his murder online.
A University of Pennsylvania professor called Charlie the “head of Trump’s Hitler youth.” A University of South Dakota professor smeared Kirk as a “hate spreading Nazi.” An Ohio State University medical center respiratory therapist called Charlie a “waste of oxygen” and said he might “be worth something to the vultures.”
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For years, higher education has cultivated a toxic culture that excuses and rationalizes violence against conservatives to the point that the rhetoric seemingly glorifies such action. Professors who cheer bloodshed are not fringe; they’re influential authority figures teaching the next generation of leaders that violence is acceptable.
What’s worse, that toxic mindset has metastasized into an “assassination culture” poisoning the next generation.
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The good news is that some universities are holding radical faculty accountable.
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville fired a professor who said Charlie’s children are “better off” without him and called Erika Kirk “sick” for marrying him. Belmont University fired a professor for calling Kirk an “amplifier of fascism.” The University of Miami fired a neurologist, Florida Atlantic University placed a professor on leave, and Clemson University fired an employee while investigating two others for celebrating Kirk’s death.
Freedom of speech does not mean blanket freedom from consequences. Professors and employees who openly celebrate assassinations aren’t martyrs for free expression; they’re violating professional codes of conduct.
That "some universities are holding radical faculty accountable" gets zero kudos from me. Universities' admins have tolerated their verbal crap
AND violence against conservatives for decades. It's beyond onvious that had there been consequences for the verbal incitement and for the violence 20 and 30 years ago, things would not have escalated to what we will have to somehow walk through today and coming months.
