'1984' Revisited: 85 Percent of Liberal College Students Support 'Reporting' Their Professors for 'Offensive' Comments

(Tony Overman/The Olympian via AP, File)

Would George Orwell, author of the iconic dystopian novel “1984,” be proud? Oh hell, no. He’d admonish us with a stern “I warned you.” Yup, “Big Brother” is alive and well in today’s America, and that reality is nowhere more apparent than on college campuses–on Twitter and Facebook, as well, but we’ll get there.

Advertisement

According to the 2022 American College Student Freedom, Progress, and Flourishing Survey, 56 percent of undergrads support “reporting” professors who “say something offensive.” Worse, but totally predictably, 70 percent of independent students also support the idea, while 85 percent of liberal students agree.

How many kinds of wrong and ominous are the nationwide survey results? Let us count the ways.

While college leftists might believe a professor speaking against on-demand abortion until birth is offensive, a conservative student might believe that a professor speaking in support of on-demand abortion until birth is offensive. Moreover, and potentially most ominous, who — or what draconian board — gets to make the call on what is offensive and what is not?

Given the sorry state of today’s no-longer-hallowed halls of academia, that is not a difficult question to answer.

In addition, the survey found that “78 percent of liberal students, 43 percent of conservative students, and 62 percent of independent students say a student should be reported for speech they deem offensive.”

How “progressive.” What better says “freedom to share ideas and debate issues without fear of retribution” than students turning in their peers for making “offensive” comments?

The survey was authored by two North Dakota State University business professors for the school’s Challey Institute, which lists among its goals, “to maintain an open and collegial environment to promote inclusivity and diversity of perspectives as a cornerstone of education, research, and outreach,” and to “provide transformational experiences for students from diverse backgrounds through high-quality education and opportunities for personal and professional development.”

Advertisement

Sure it does. Except for NDSU students and professors — let’s call them “the others” —who make comments or observations that are “offensive” to “right-thinkers.” Kind of a reverse safe space on steroids, isn’t it? Cancel culture in a nutshell, as it were.

The survey also asked students if “the classes and other academic activities [they] have participated in during college changed [their] view of the U.S.” How interesting — albeit completely predictable. After all, the left must continually measure its progress in the total indoctrination of America’s school kids, if it is to be successful in changing our country as we know it.

Of the 57 percent of students who said their views of America have been changed, “over 70 percent indicated that college has changed their view of America to be more negative,” said the survey’s authors in a June article for Newsweek. Shocked? Me, neither; of course their views on patriotism have changed.

The bottom line:

As I suggested at the top, this Big Brother” nonsense is not dissimilar to that of the insidiousness of Big Tech. Twitter, Facebook, Google, and others, which appoint themselves supreme arbiters of what is offensive — to whom — and what is not. The real question is, who arbitrates the arbiters?

Never forget: so-called “progressivism” starts at the top of the leftist food chain. Leftist elitists rely on useful idiots to reach the hordes of the low-information liberal base. Think: “Democrat voters.”

Advertisement

From pretend “white supremacy” and “systemic racism,” to “homophobic,” “transphobic,” “Islamophobic,” and whatever other types of “phobic,” the song remains the same.

Figure that out and get back to me, won’t you?

Related on RedState:

New York Lets College Students Get Their Gender-Queer Names on Diplomas

University of Minnesota Lecture Outlines 12-Step Recovery Program for… Wait for It… WHITENESS

Antifa Anarchists Get Their ‘Intellectual and Ethical Bearings’ From Our ‘Failed Universities’: Victor Davis Hanson

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos