When the Left denounces “book bans,” limitations on school walkouts, and “sexist dress codes,” threats to students’ First Amendment rights are catapulted to the forefront of the news and national consciousness. When conservatives raise similar concerns, they’re not afforded the same privilege.
A recent incident at Connecticut’s Trinity College epitomized this double standard. A video appears to show a school administration official tearing down patriotic flags, supposedly at the behest of the dean’s office. One of the flags was a Gadsden Flag, and the other was a standard American flag with a blue, red, and green line, representing law enforcement, firefighters, and federal agents, respectively. It wasn’t immediately clear what the grounds were for removing the flags from the students’ dorm.
This outrageous assault on the right to self-expression is enough to bring Johnny Cash to tears. There is nothing offensive or obscene about loving one’s country unless you’re a left-winger who has lost touch with reality. If students can’t make their patriotism known, on what can they opine? How can a school serve as an incubator of the free exchange of ideas if one can’t even voice support for the country and its civil servants? Alas, this is just the latest example of higher education failing to perform its most basic function.
Progressives who support this kind of blatant censorship and then ask why so many people have lost faith in elite institutions are engaging in the height of gaslighting. When freedom of speech is treated like a privilege granted to a select few rather than a right we are all endowed with, doubts about the system’s impartiality are sown. Is it any wonder why so many are champing at the bit to tear it all down?