That headline is not an error. A professor is being “boycotted” on campus, students are dropping his class, the university is investigating him, all because he and his wife SAW AND HEARD what happened at a rally students don’t approve of.
At Skidmore College in New York, professor David Peterson is being targeted by the mob. Why? Because he and his wife, apparently for about 20 minutes on their way to dinner, stood passively nearby while a pro-police rally was underway, and counter protesters were confronting the rally-goers.
For that obviously evil crime of having the senses of sight and hearing, students are actively and with some success attempting to drive him off campus, and to have both Petersons fired from their respective jobs.
But unbeknownst to Peterson, the couple’s attendance at the rally was noticed. Now Skidmore students are demanding that both Peterson be fired for “engaging in hateful conduct that threatens Black Skidmore students,” according to Times-Union columnist Chris Churchill, who wrote about the controversy.
“Merely listening to an opinion that some Skidmore students find objectionable is apparently enough to get a professor in hot water,” writes Churchill.
Of course it’s enough. This is what liberals are teaching American children and young adults. It’s what the BLM movement is born from. Well that and outright Marxism.
Students are railing against him to the university and online, and have even taped a note to his door warning other students not to attend his classes or else.
On a recent day, Peterson arrived at his classroom to find a notice taped to the door. “STOP,” it demanded. “By entering this class you are crossing a campus-wide picket line and breaking the boycott against Professor David Peterson.”
“This is not a safe environment for marginalized students,” the notice also said, after vaguely accusing Peterson of past sexism and transphobia. “By continuing to take this course you are enabling bigoted behavior on this campus.”
The student paper ran an op-ed against the professor – which by the way included his explanation of having just been curious about the spectacle in his town, to no avail – demanding he be punished for his ear crime.
“I still have no indication of how [David and Andrea Peterson] plan to take accountability for their actions and make their classrooms a safe space for our communities of color,” wrote the student.
In any case, the boycott is evidently succeeding: Peterson said that most of his students have dropped his classes: Those who think the boycott is ridiculous are afraid to speak up, one student told Churchill. Skidmore’s administration defended his free speech rights in a statement, but is nevertheless investigating the accusations of bias in the classroom.
This is what it’s come to. You don’t have to endorse something out loud, or even think it to yourself anymore. You are guilty simply having heard someone else say it. Hearing and not objecting is a crime. That’s why the D.C. idiots think it’s fine to force restaurant patrons to raise their fist in solidarity: because to not do so makes you the oppressor.
It’s a purge mentality (think Soviets not box office) that is obvious to everyone. But one that cowardly and complicit media like CNN wouldn’t dare report on, much less criticize.
Read more from Reason here.