Higher education isn’t an ivory tower, it’s a filthy swamp.
SUNY Brockport proves the point.
When political pressure forced the president to withdraw money from a diversity grant that was going to pay a cop killer to speak on campus, four separate departments of the university came forward to say they would pick up the tab.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The point is that Anthony Bottom, who executed two cops, planned the execution of a third, and would have killed a fourth if his machine gun hadn’t jammed, is coming to campus April 6 to talk about political prisoners in America and about the genocide of black people by the white society and government.
Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini.
They were ambushed, answering a false domestic-violence call in Harlem.
Officer Jones was shot three times from behind, including a .45 into the back of his head. Similarly shot from behind, and hit three times and hemorrhaging on the ground, Officer Piagentini begged for his life before being shot in the genitals and the anus and then riddled with everything left in the gun.
That’s who the State University of New York is welcoming to its hallowed halls. The announcement of the event calls him a “political prisoner” and promises an “intellectual” discussion.
That’s American higher education today. It’s not just useless degrees and suffocating debt, it’s also an active war against the nation and its culture and values.
And people raised a stink.
Kind of.
Oh, the former lieutenant governor said the cop killer shouldn’t receive a taxpayer-funded stipend, and the county executive and congressman said he wasn’t really a “political prisoner,” but nobody with a D after their name said that he shouldn’t speak at a government university. They were looking to be appeased, and quickly they were.
But he’s still speaking.
Thanks to an “anonymous donor.” That’s what the interim provost said today, in a letter to faculty.
But the anonymous donor got ripped off. When political pressure forced the college president to withdraw a diversity grant which had expected to pay the stipend, faculty sources tell me that four separate Brockport academic departments came forward to pay the speaker out of their budgets.
All of this is defended by the president, who says academic freedom and freedom of speech are the hallmarks of her campus.
Sometimes.
Because her campus’s online free speech guidelines actually imply that speech at Brockport isn’t all that free.
“We affirm that the dignity of our Brockport community is protected,” the woke campus rules declare, “when free speech, academic freedom and individual rights are expressed ONLY with responsible and careful regard for the feelings and sensitivities of others.”
Except murdered-cops’ wives, right?
Eff them and their feelings and sensitivities, right?
In fact, the only contact the widow of Joseph Piagentini has had with SUNY Brockport was when the college reached out to say that it was concerned demonstrations in opposition to Anthony Bottom would turn violent, and become racist and bigoted hate fests. She said they wanted her to make sure no one honoring her husband’s life got out of line. She thinks they’re trying to turn this around so that they are the victim.
She thinks that because she’s smart.
Because that’s what they’re trying to do.
The letter the provost sent out said that “the possible advent of large numbers of police officers on campus” may be another “traumatizing event” for students.
Large numbers of police officers?
Because a retired police chief and some of his pals are out on the street holding Thin Blue Line flags? A dozen grandparents with Back The Blue t-shirts pose a threat? Brockport will call in the riot squad for that?
You’ve got a cop killer giving a talk and the threat to public safety is the elderly people holding the American flags?
Actually, on a campus where the university president forced the school police chief to write a letter banning the Thin Blue Line flag as an emblem of “white supremacy,” I can see where some of the PhDs would be triggered.
But normal people would be flummoxed.
Because police are good and murderers are bad.
And if that isn’t clear to you, then you’ve got your head up your ass. Or you are a tenured professor. Or you work in the academic wing of the revolution.
Or are an anonymous donor.
Here’s the bottom line. The appearance of Anthony Bottom on the campus of the state university is an implied endorsement by the state of New York. The facility and its resources are all taxpayer funded. There is a seal of approval that is put upon him and his remarks by his speech being hosted by the university.
And that is wrong.
He has free speech, and people have the right to peacefully assemble and listen.
But let them do so on private property. Rent a hall, borrow a church, buy time at the convention center.
But don’t host him at the government’s university. Don’t subsidize him with taxes or tuition.
That’s what regular people think. And regular people can’t understand why their governor and their congressman and their state senator don’t think the same thing. Given the choice to support dead cops or the guy who killed them, why have the governor and her party chosen to give silent assent to the murderer?
Is the pro-criminal lobby more influential in New York elections than people who believe Thou Shalt Not Kill?
It’s not enough to pull the stipend or object to some words, the event must be moved off campus. Period. Nothing less.
Anything less is offensive and wrong.
Sure, Anthony Bottom killed those cops, but SUNY Brockport is pissing on their graves.
And that can’t be allowed to happen.