I am not the most religious person in the world, but this kind of crap ticks me off. And it is not because we may need more religion in our lives, but because we in colleges is where we allowed the the ingraining of the ideas that restrict speech under the cover of protecting feelings.
I went to a religious college which happened to offer my chosen career. One of the things we accepted (somewhat) was the attending of “chapel” once a week, which was basically one hour of a Baptist minister doing his thing. This came with the package of the college offerings and you knew ahead of time. But other than that, there was no religious imposition on us or denial to exercise our particular religions. In fact, one invited minister went on a rant against Catholics, and the poor bastard never expected that there was a bunch of us attending the school who stood up loudly protesting and left the hall in protests (Rumors about a particular exchange student cussing in English like a drunken sailor may or not may be truthful). The college promptly apologized individually to every student which was a classy move. And this is from a private Southern Baptist college who would expel your ass if they caught you smelling like booze on campus and dancing was verbotten (More on that in another post). The college never, ever tried to restrict the Freedom of Religion of any student even when it had a health representation of foreign students in it. And again, they were private and not subject to the whims of federal funding.
I can almost bet you that a considerable majority of kids playing unrestricted Antifa come from indoctrination camps like that… I mean colleges like that. There is only one religion allowed and that is the Cult of the Left.
Years ago, Georgia Tech did the same thing. The issue then was “ right to life.” The administration was against it. Two young conservative women sued, and continued the suit after graduation, which GT didn’t expect. They won.
It looks like this fight is never over.
I was lucky enough to move from RI to MD just after the desegregated the schools. Just in time to enter middle school.
The first thing I learned was that MD schools were of very poor quality compared to the schools in RI. I felt like I had been held back 2 or 3 years. When I entered my parents immediately entered my brother and I on the waiting list for the only school worth a darn within distance of our home. Oh, those public schools were 20 miles away on a 2 lane road that wasn’t very straight. I spent an hour and a half on that darn bus everyday.
Entering high school we were grouped into classes. The classes were named “A” through “G” with the “A” group being more “academically inclined”. That is to say, more likely to actually do school work than the students in the “G” group. I was in the “A” group and we had exactly ONE PoC out of 30. There were only PoC in the “D”, “E”, “F”, and “G” groups.
And the education still was poor. And the way that people that were not of color were treated was horrible. Bullying and other stuff. And the staff and admin did nothing to stop it because “racism by the whitie against the poor PoC” was the reason the PoC was beating the crap out of me every other day.
So we got into that little Catholic school. We were required to take a religion class. But the school realized that fully 30% of the school population were not Catholic so they had Catholic religion classes and “generic christian” religion classes. I was in the generic.
We never felt like religion was being forced on us. We never had to praise god or do prayers. but we learned about religions and why and where they came from.
I think the only “religious” thing we had to do was we had to attend 2 or 3 services per year that the entire school attended in mass and the Priest did his thing. If you were Catholic you did all the Catholic things. If not, you could just sit quiet and respectful in the pews.
I wish the secular schools treated non-Catholic Christians as well as the Catholic school did.
The greatest weapon in our arsenal to fight this is 18 USC Section 241 Conspiracy against rights:
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
We need federal DOJ employees who are willing to use this to send school administrators and others to prison for shutting down civil liberties.
But the goverment does a horribly shitty job of policing itself.
What I’d give for a rogue president (like Trump) to put in rogue DOJ agents to nail people to the wall with 18 USC 241.
wow!
… I didn’t realize how easy l had it when I was in school a hundred years ago….
We just went to class, took tests, rode the bus, pep rallies, etc. Nothing political. At all.
Sheesh! I feel sorry for the kids these days. It’s tough enough just being a kid!
“… they were private and not subject to the whims of federal funding” — so they didn’t take, directly or indirectly, any federal money? No student loans, no scholarships? That’s what it takes (under current federal doctrine) to be free of government interference. Very few colleges indeed do what it takes to obtain that freedom. One or two religiously oriented colleges do (Liberty University? Oral Roberts University?). And I know of one other college that does: Hillsdale College.