Opinion

Challenging A Professor’s Anti-White Tweets Isn’t Censorship

OPINION
Scott Greer Contributor
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“All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide” is the perfect holiday message to draw social media outrage, and Drexel University professor George Ciccariello-Maher certainly achieved that with his one tweet.

When the inevitable outrage arose over his tweet, Ciccariello-Maher doubled down and praised the extermination of whites during the Haitian Revolution as “a good thing indeed.” But as the backlash continued to mount and a few Twitter users called for the politics professor to be fired, the academic troll backed away from his provocative comments, declaring them satire and emphasizing that “white” isn’t a race.

He also made sure to state that the white genocide meme is a myth of the “alt right,” after praising one real-life instance of race-based slaughter against Caucasians. (RELATED: University Professor: I Want ‘White Genocide’ For Christmas)

But Ciccariello-Maher’s employers did not find his tweets funny. Drexel issued a condemnation of its professor’s tweets Monday, calling them “utterly reprehensible” and vowing to take the uproar “seriously.”

That condemnation from the university sparked a social media outcry from the Left, which saw Drexel’s actions as an example of how Trump’s America is silencing courageous dissent.

A few users even defended Ciccariello-Maher’s praise of the Haitian slaughter of whites.

And, naturally, a petition was started in support of Ciccariello-Maher, which one scholar tweeted out as a necessary item to protest academia’s “white supremacy.”

The professor at the center of the controversy himself criticized his school’s statement on his tweets. “White supremacy is on the rise, and we must fight it by any means. In that fight, universities will need to choose whether they are on the side of free expression and academic debate, or on the side of the racist mob,” Ciccariello-Maher said in a statement to The Daily Caller.

Even though he now thinks of himself as a victim of “white supremacy,” this professor has a long history of publicly expressing anti-white sentiment — without consequence. As documented by The Daily Caller’s Alex Pfeiffer, Ciccariello-Maher has peddled anti-white conspiracy theories from the Nation of Islam, called for abolishing the white race and demanded the “gulag[ing]” of “racist crackers” involved in a false accusation of Islamophobia. (RELATED: Drexel Professor Has A History Of Hating White People And Wishing For Their Genocide)

All that has happened to him so far is his school telling the public they don’t agree with his racially-inflammatory comments, which to his supporters represents white supremacy’s hold on higher education and outright censorship.

However, colleges are places that are not friendly to free expression — from the Right. The same campus Left that sees Ciccariello-Maher as a martyr routinely seeks to suppress political speech it finds offensive. Which makes the outrage from the Left over this episode so ridiculous.

You can fill a whole book of examples of how the campus Left undermines free speech, harasses opponents and browbeats students with their ideological agenda. I myself did just that with the upcoming work, “No Campus for White Men.”

For a recent example, just look at how Donald Trump supporting students have been treated on campus. In October, University of Pittsburgh students manning a Youth for Trump table were surrounded, berated and physically intimidated by a mob of outraged lefties. (RELATED: Conservative Pittsburgh Students Fear For Their Safety)

The president of Cornell University’s College Republican chapter reported that she was assaulted and called a “racist bitch” in response to Trump’s win the day after the election. A freshman student at Bryn Mawr College said the harassment against her for Trump support was so severe that she had to transfer after just one semester at the school. (RELATED: College Student Driven Out Of School For Backing Trump)

These are just a few examples of the kind of intimidation students face for showing any support for Trump or the Republican Party.

And it’s not just students who face penalties for their political beliefs.

New York University professor Michael Rectenwald claimed he was forced to go on paid leave in late October after revealing he was behind the “Deplorable NYU Professor” Twitter account that frequently skewered political correctness.

A month ago, a petition was launched to force the University of North Carolina-Wilmington to fire professor Mike Adams for his conservative views. Fortunately it did not sway the university, but in 2014 Adams won a First Amendment lawsuit against the school for punishing him over publicly expressing his conservative political views.

So the hysteria and accusations of speech suppression over Drexel’s rebuke of Ciccariello-Maher’s anti-white comments look stupid when compared to the mob fury that faces conservatives on campuses. It’s highly unlikely that the Drexel professor will receive anything more than a stern lecture on how to avoid controversy on Twitter from his superiors.

Twitter users challenging his extreme views is just a sign of free expression in action, not of a resurgent “white supremacy.” What Ciccariello-Maher’s supporters seem to really want is for his anti-white views to be accepted without question and celebrated.

On college campuses nationwide, similar statements are enshrined as orthodoxy and are drilled into students’ heads starting at orientation. Ciccariello-Maher isn’t a radical outlier in higher education — he’s the norm. (RELATED: Taxpayer-Backed School Holds Lesson On How To ‘Stop White People’)

It’s refreshing to see those views finally condemned by a university, especially with all the shrill accusations of “white supremacy.”

But the real sign of improvement would see colleges hiring more dissenting voices to challenge the prevalent biases of academics like George Ciccariello-Maher.

Follow Scott on Twitter and pre-order his upcoming book, “No Campus for White Men” on Amazon