Free speech? What’s that? Not to mention nothing he said was racist. But just questioning their narrative is inherently offensive and obviously racist. Sad that we have to give kudos to the paper and school for backing up the writer and free speech because that should be a given. But we do, so good job, guys!
Via Fox News:
An Iraq War veteran has found himself in a First Amendment battle after taking on the Black Lives Matter movement in his role as a college newspaper columnist.
Bryan Stascavage, a 30-year-old Wesleyan University student who served two tours in Iraq, penned an op-ed in the school newspaper that criticized the Black Lives Matter movement for creating an environment he believes advocates violence by spreading anti-cop hatred, and questioned the movement’s legitimacy.
“Is the movement itself actually achieving anything positive?” Stascavage wrote in his op-ed, “Why Black Lives Matter Isn’t What You Think,” published Sept. 14 in the Wesleyan Argus.
“It boils down to this for me: If vilification and denigration of the police force continues to be a significant portion of Black Lives Matter’s message, then I will not support the movement, I cannot support the movement. And many Americans feel the same,” Stascavage wrote.
“Is it worth another riot that destroys a downtown district? Another death, another massacre? At what point will Black Lives Matter go back to the drawing table and rethink how they are approaching the problem?” he questioned.
He said that certain actions by the movement’s extremists — like calling for more “pig” police officers to “fry like bacon” — should be condemned by the movement’s leaders.
“As members of a university community, we always have the right to respond with our own opinions, but there is no right not to be offended.”
– Wesleyan University President Michael Roth
The opinion piece unleashed a firestorm of criticism, first directed at Stascavage and later at the school newspaper and its editors. Stascavage said he’s been called a racist by students on campus, while some activists are calling on the school’s student government to defund the newspaper.
A petition demanding the Wesleyan Argus lose funding unless it meets certain demands has signatures from at least 172 students, staff and recent alumni. Signatories threatened to boycott the paper because they said it fails to “provide a safe space for the voices of students of color and we are doubtful that it will in the future.”