By Scott Wilhite
Managing Editor
It’s time to grow up millennials.
Last week, Fox New’s Megyn Kelly called all y’all cream puffs. That’s right, and she didn’t just do it once. No, she gleefully called all college students cream puffs so many times I lost count.
For the record, I generally disagree with any and everything that comes from Kelly, even before I hear her out. As a liberal, it’s just good practice.
This time, however, she may have a point. Some college students may be a little too puffy on matters of free speech.
The story she was hubrisly (new word) opining about was what just happened at the University of Missouri where some football players decided they didn’t like how one of their administrators responded to a situation that involved a complaint, so they boycotted their involvement with anything football related.
As a result of their actions and other student protests, the president and the chancellor both resigned.
Students complaining about one thing or another isn’t new. During the Vietnam War, college campuses and students were probably responsible for changing public opinion about what our government was continuing to support, which wasn’t good, and did need attention.
But up in Missouri, there wasn’t a war, or anything close.
In 2014, a former George W. Bush cabinet member, Condoleezza Rice, was scheduled to give a commencement speech at Rutgers University and decided to back out due to student protests against her giving the speech. In this case, the anti-Rice students didn’t like her involvement with the decisions that lead to the Iraq war.
And over in the pro-Rice corner, her supporters felt as if by forcing her to back out, the students were (if I may borrow from Kelly) cream puffs and should have allowed Rice to speak- even if what she had to say was not in line with the students’ views. There was even drama at Yale University last month over an associate professor’s email that appeared to give do’s and don’ts over what Halloween costumes students should wear.
C’mon- enough is enough.
As a liberal who believes my 1st Amendment right trumps every other amendment in the Bill of Rights, I have to say that for the first time in my life, I agree with a Fox News pundit.
There is a line, however, that is obvious and should never be crossed and I’m talking about the workplace and K-12 public schools. Hanging a poster of a fireman who forgot to get dressed the day they were taking pictures shouldn’t be hung. Nor should anyone feel truly threatened.
But college is different. College is a place to see and hear all ideas and opinions- even, and especially, the ones that make you cringe.
In the case of Rice and Rutgers, I would probably be right there in the middle of the protest. I would protest how she turned her cheek at the enhanced interrogations that went on when she was National Security Advisor.
But, I think I would still want her to show up. She’s not a threat, her involvement with the Iraq war is over, and maybe if she and the country saw an organized group of students protesting the decisions she made, and not her simply being there, would give pause to the next decision makers who decide when and where we go to war.
The Internet and social media have changed how we view what’s going on around us. In the case of the University of Missouri football players, however, it sounds more like a mob effect that, with the help of social media and a few bad decisions that were made in the heat of an on-campus protest, went too far too fast.
Jumping on a bandwagon, any bandwagon –just ‘cause- is probably not a good thing. That is unless it’s Megyn Kelly and, like me, your brain is wired that way.