OPINION
The following was posted Sunday on Facebook by Trevor Tomesh, assistant professor of Computer, Information and Data Science (CIDS) at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls. It is reprinted in its entirety with permission.
I’m a University professor here in Wisconsin.
Obligatory disclaimer: these views are mine alone and do not reflect the views of the University of Wisconsin.
The fact that Charlie was killed on a college campus for expressing his opinions and ideas — the one place in society what’s sole purpose is to express opinions and ideas — should be a watershed moment for all universities.
Every single member of every single university community — faculty, administrators, staff and students — should be lamenting this as it spells the death of the university.
There should have immediately been a press release from every school in the United States condemning this act of ideological violence.
Students should have been told about the gravity of this situation.
Faculty should have been coached on how to explain what freedom of speech looks like, and every classroom should have an entire lecture devoted to why what Charlie was doing was fundamental to the fabric of American society.
Instead, hundreds of professors and students celebrated and continue to celebrate.
To date, there has been no statement from my university or the university of Wisconsin system.
Not a single one of my students heard from any of their professors about this.
How do I know? I asked them. Not only did I ask them, but I gave them a 50-minute lecture about why this moment is one of the darkest in American History and how we must pull back from this and encourage dialogue or the American project is dead.
Conservative students and faculty are taking this silence on behalf of administrators as an endorsement of violence against them.
When little 5’4” 96 lb grandma, Sister Cindy Smock came to our campus to talk to kids about Jesus, they had sent out a campus wide email telling the students that if they need to talk about their traumatic experience that councilors are available and there’s a safe space where they can go to cry and play with toys. They then assembled a task force to determine how to handle people like Cindy and the trauma she inflicts on students.
When my students witnessed a man — someone they grew up watching since they were kids — have his throat blown out with a 30 06 round at a college campus much like our own doing something that they are meant to be doing … nothing.
I’ve written, called and pleaded with admins on campus to JUST SAY SOMETHING!
No returned calls. No emails back. No invitations to talk about this. Nothing. I had one email the day of telling me (because they know conservative students actually talk to me) that I can send students to the woke counselors in the diversity, equity and belonging building on campus.
Oh — and I got an email reminding me that if I am going to identify myself as a professor, I need to add a variation of the disclaimer I left at the top of this comment.
So, I am angry. I am disappointed. I am scared shitless.
But when I got done with my lecture (which I intend on publishing — I did record it), nearly every student came to me and shook my hand. One student (Korean, I believe) even gave me a bow.
These kids can be saved. There is so much potential in gen z — but if the only thing they hear from the institutions of higher learning is extremist propaganda from radical Marxists, many more Charlie Kirk’s are going to happen and America will be extinct within the century.
Tomorrow is another school week. I am going to continue to fight like hell. But I can’t do this alone, though. I need your help.
Thanks for reading.
