We have become used to college students regularly presenting colleges and universities with long lists of complex and strident demands. One writer, however, thinks it’s time for taxpayers—who are on the hook for a lot of this craziness—to start making demands of their own.
Over at Townhall, Mike Lachance cites several recent examples of student demand-making—such as the madness at St. Olaf college, or the takeover at UC Santa Cruz—and claims that “the people who pay the bills are more entitled to make demands and that’s exactly what American taxpayers should start doing.”
“None of this will change until taxpayers start making demands,” he writes, “and they are the only people who should be entitled to do so.”
Lachance offers several suggestions:
1. Public colleges and universities which do not defend the free speech rights of students, faculty or speakers invited by recognized student groups should be stripped of all tax funding.
2. Students at public colleges and universities who participate in riots or mobs which shut down speech through intimidation and or violence should be immediately expelled and declared ineligible for any and all student loans funded by taxpayers.
3. Students at public colleges and universities who engage in any sort of campus building takeover or occupation should be immediately expelled and declared ineligible for any and all student loans funded by taxpayers.
4. Students at public colleges and universities who intimidate other students over politics should be immediately expelled and declared ineligible for any and all student loans funded by taxpayers.
Lachance claims that any professors who engage in similar behavior should be fired.
“What’s happening at Evergreen State College,” he argues, “isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. Academia has been taken over by the radical left and they’re using tax dollars to further their cause.”
In the process, he claims, political debate on campus is being shut down while demands are being made “which conflict with the values of many of the very people who are paying the bill.”
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