There’s no better way to make your college look classy than by allowing students to bully and shout down a woman who’s been invited to speak at your law school.
And that’s precisely what just happened at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, where libertarian-leaning conservative Christina Hoff Sommers was verbally abused and interrupted by a group of protesters as she tried to speak to law students at the invitation of the Federalist Society.
Sommers, who hit the national spotlight 25 years ago as a feminist who rejected many of the left-wing orthodoxy of the 1970s, is a former philosophy professor and author of the well known book, “Who Stole Feminism?” She's written extensively on how so-called “women’s issues” have been expanded and misused in order to destroy property rights, malign business owners (especially those who are male), and inject politics into areas where politics need not go.
She's also consistently and repeatedly stated that she believes in equality, while offering the evidently frightening idea that in order to treat woman as sovereign individuals, one should recognize that women must be allowed the choice to engage in parenting, motherhood, and other fields rabid “progressive” feminists claim aren’t “choices," but are “roles” foist upon women by the patriarchy.
As Robby Soave reports for Reason, for her efforts, Ms. Sommers was attacked at Lewis and Clark.
Sign-wielding protesters rushed to the front of the classroom where Sommers was attempting to speak and drowned her out. The leader, a woman wearing a jacket that said "stay woke" on the back, shouted "mic check." The gathered protesters then repeated the line. And so it went, with the crowd echoing the leader's claims.
Reporter Andy Ngo was there to witness the heroic display of fascist tactics and tweeted video of it, which, so far, has not been banned by the mucky-mucks at the predominantly leftist Twitter.
This is what happened when @CHSommers tried to start her lecture. pic.twitter.com/WJrQGAnmkA
— Andy C. Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) March 5, 2018
Protesters start singing song against @CHSommers: “No platform for fascists” pic.twitter.com/nr3d62DiKe
— Andy C. Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) March 5, 2018
The outcome? A college “dean of diversity” asked Ms. Sommers to cut her presentation short. Evidently, the irony of protesters so stridently opposing “fascism” through the suppression of speech was lost on him.
As a general supporter of free markets and individual rights, Ms. Sommers clearly is not a fascist. And for the protesters to imply this at the event, and on Twitter prior to it, is tantamount to defamatory slander and libel.
By offering the idea that women ought to be respected for choosing to stay home with kids, is Ms. Sommers backing a male-dominated, patriarchal mindset that females have been brainwashed by men? They have no independent thought if the conclusions they reach differ from the post-modernist left? This is simply silly and negates individual preference.
What about Ms. Sommers’ skepticism of leftist claims that “rape culture” is pervasive in America and needs addressing through government policy and special consideration for females on college campuses? Could Ms. Sommers be right?
And what about the “gender wage gap”? This is where the left goes apoplectic about Ms. Sommers. Her epic debunking of the so-called “wage gap” is backed by statistics and analysis that would be ripe for discussion if people wanted to engage in it, rather than shut down speech.
But the opportunity for reasoned discourse has not been embraced by the so-called anti-fascists. In fact, the move to demonize anyone who does not conform to the collectivist agenda of Antifa and other leftist groups is a strategy that goes way, way back.
Now, what we are seeing on college campuses is simply a manifestation of the very postmodernist "Critical Theory" pedagogy utilized by many, if not most, leftist professors to make literature mean anything they want it to, regardless of the author’s intent. Respect for the individual author or student be damned, they have agendas to pursue, and for them, the ends seem to justify the unsavory means.
Ms. Sommers has been victimized, unfairly accused of espousing ideas she does not support, and silenced by these people.
All one can hope is that reasonable folks will see the unsavory tactics used against her, and respond by actually listening.