The College Fix

OPINION

Here’s an idea for Young Americans for Freedom, Young Americans for Liberty, Turning Point USA, the Liberty Institute and other groups that work with conservative and libertarian students to advance truth and free speech on colleges: Take fallacious microaggression examples pushed by leftists that declare phrases such as “America is the land of opportunity” a no-no, plaster such expressions on posters and fliers, and hand them out on the quad and shout them from campus grassy knolls. Declare war against microaggression shaming, because truth is not a microaggression. 

Abraham Lincoln in a speech 178 years ago warned of the greatest threat that faced America.

“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?” Lincoln said. “By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.”

“At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad,” he continued. “If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

Colleges use microaggressions as tool to take stand against American exceptionalism 

Lincoln’s warning that the greatest threat to America would come from within is more true today than ever before.

There are myriad examples, but one of the most insidious and pressing assaults is the concerted effort by those who control college campuses who insist America is an evil, racist and unjust country worthy of disdain and dismemberment; who declare America only helps those with white skin and all others are helpless or need a hand out to make it; who suggest supporting notions of colorblindness and hard work is at best insensitive and at worst racist.

This manifests itself as more and more college campuses declare that saying things such as “America is a melting pot” and “America is the land of opportunity” and “I believe there is only one race — the human race” are microaggressions that should not be uttered. The latest campus to offer such nonsense is North Carolina State University, whose faculty ombudsman recently published a list of microaggressions that included those phrases and others, the Daily Caller reports.

Several versions of this microaggressions list have made the rounds at college campuses across the nation over the last year.

A business class at Purdue University teaches students the phrase “America is a melting pot” is a microaggression. Additional microaggressions warned against include: “Where are you from,” “There is only one race, the human race,” “Everyone can succeed in society if they work hard enough” and “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.”

The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point officials also advised faculty against saying those expressions. The list is very similar to the one distributed by the University of California system administrators in voluntary faculty trainings held over the 2014-15 school year.

MORE: Leading scholar on ‘microaggressions’ aghast at how colleges use his research

Other sayings deemed unacceptable include:

● “Everyone can succeed in this society, if they work hard enough.”

● “Where are you from or where were you born?”

● “Affirmative action is racist.”

● “When I look at you, I don’t see color.”

‘Die by suicide’ – or wage war for truth?

Truth has become a microaggression on college campuses.

America IS the land of opportunity, that’s why millions of Latinos are willing to die to get here through a dangerous desert border crossing, for example. Saying “there is only one race, the human race” brings us closer together and highlights our similarities instead of constantly tearing us apart. Affirmative action IS racist because it suggests black people cannot make it without help from the government. And on and on.

Everything college leaders warn against saying should actually be shouted from the rooftops.

Here’s an idea for Young Americans for Freedom, Young Americans for Liberty, Turning Point USA, the Liberty Institute and other groups that work with conservative and libertarian students to advance truth and free speech on colleges: Take fallacious microaggression examples pushed by leftists that declare phrases such as “America is the land of opportunity” a no-no, plaster such expressions on posters and fliers, and hand them out on the quad and shout them from campus grassy knolls. Declare war against microaggression shaming, because truth is not a microaggression.

Lincoln warned of the enemy from within, and a perfect example of that are the lies masquerading as compassion at our institutions of higher learning. It’s time to fight the enemy on its own turf.

MORE: School board mulls expelling microaggressors

MORE: Saying ‘America is the land of opportunity’ is offensive

MORE: UW-Madison needs more counselors for microaggressions

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