By Rich Lowry
Tuesday, April 05, 2016
Students at the University of Michigan called police the
other day — because someone had written Donald Trump’s name in chalk.
No arrests were made. The episode is part of a nationwide
trend of Trump supporters writing pro-Trump messages on sidewalks, stairs, and
other surfaces at college campuses, where fainting fits are sure to ensue.
When they could get no relief from law enforcement, the
University of Michigan students took it upon themselves to erase the offending
messages — including “Trump 2016,” “Build the Wall” and “Stop Islam” — while
fighting through feelings of betrayal.
One student complained that there should be a special
emergency number to call in such cases — one wonders how often students are
really going to need recourse to an unwelcome-chalk-message hotline — and said
that the administration’s inadequate response “perpetuates these really racist
and hateful stereotypes that turn into violence and turn into students of color
feeling unsafe on campus.”
Rarely before have a few scribblings been so traumatizing
— and written not even in ink or paint or some other difficult-to-remove
substance, but in the same chalk used to mark out hopscotch courts and write
temporary promotional messages about sorority mixers and student theatrical
productions. That chalk messages can be considered tantamount to a physical
threat captures the crisis of free speech on campus perfectly.
What has become known on social media as “the chalkening”
demonstrates how some college kids can’t be exposed to the simplest expression
of support for a major presidential candidate without wanting to scurry to the
nearest safe space. By this standard, a “Make America Great Again” hat is a
hate crime waiting to happen. It’s not clear how any of these students can turn
on cable TV or look at the polls for the Republican nomination these days
without being triggered.
Pro-Trump chalking took off after the reaction at Emory
University, where some students were reduced to tears by the messages and said
they felt “fear.” Protesters gathered at an administration building and let
loose the antiphonal chant “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in
pain!” This might have been an appropriate response if the kids had been
tear-gassed, rather than seeing a positive phrase about a candidate that is
supported by some significant plurality of the American public.
The president of the school, James Wagner, promised to
review security footage to try to identify the perpetrators, and in a statement
full of campus-diversity jargon pledged, among other things, “immediate
refinements to certain policy and procedural deficiencies” and “regular and
structured opportunities for difficult dialogues.”
How about striking an even greater blow for diversity and
asking the kids to get over seeing an anodyne political message that they
disagree with? To his credit, Wagner himself chalked “Emory stands for free
expression,” a message that will evidently have trouble penetrating the
formidable incuriosity of some of his students.
The reaction to the chalkening is a testament to the
electric charge surrounding Trump. He is like the Washington Redskins of
political candidates — so politically incorrect that some people can’t bear to
see or hear his name. (The New York Times
columnist Charles Blow actually refuses to use it.) This branding isn’t prudent
positioning for a general election, but it makes Trump a perfect vehicle for
provoking the other side, and it’s in that thumb-in-the-eye spirit that the
Trump chalking is spreading.
The students getting the vapors over it don’t understand
free expression or what it means to live in a free society, where you
inevitably encounter people who have ideas and support candidates that you
oppose. They hate Donald Trump. Fine. That is reason to argue and agitate
against him, not to seek protection from any contact with supporters of his, no
matter how tenuous.
If they are having a hard time handling this election
cycle, just imagine how Reince Priebus feels.
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