The violent riots at UC Berkeley responding to conservative speaker Milo Yiannopoulos are part of a larger pattern of terrorism on college campuses.
Yiannopoulos is among a growing number of people (myself included) who are concerned that universities have come to value political indoctrination over education.
This indoctrination is toward a radical form of cultural Marxist ideology known as “intersectional feminism” or “social justice.” The integrity of many humanities and social science departments has been compromised by social justice, with women and gender studies departments being the most egregious examples.
The reason social justice is so influential in academia is because everything contradicting it is aggressively censored by social justice ideologues.
Usually they do this through a form of language policing known as “political correctness.” However, they have other tactics for when this does not work, including: calling in bomb threats, pulling fire alarms, barricading doors to events, heckling constantly, assaulting speakers and, more recently, rioting violently.
Many of these tactics are illegal, and some even constitute terrorism.
Universities claim they are trying to stop terrorism, despite their incentive to enable it. Without terrorism, critics would be allowed to invalidate much of the social justice curriculum.
Given universities’ conflict of interest and poor track record in preventing terrorism, I recommend an independent third party investigate their efforts to stop it. Considering the widespread nature and severity of these crimes, I think the FBI should conduct this investigation.
The FBI needs to determine if universities have adequate resources to stop terrorism. It is not enough for them to protect people: universities have to stop speakers from being censored altogether.
Universities should be provided the necessary resources if they do not have them. If FBI assistance is insufficient, then the National Guard needs to assist.
If universities have the resources but fail to use them, one could interpret this as a tacit endorsement of terrorism.
Remember that NDSU is not immune to terrorism. Yiannopoulos’ Dec. 16, 2016 appearance at NDSU was canceled due in part to threats of violence. Had the event occurred, the debacle at UC Berkeley could have been NDSU’s embarrassment instead.
Matt Frohlich
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry employee
Materials and nanotechnology masters student