U.S. university students have become increasingly sensitive as of late, but now it looks like they may have reached a new low. This time, students at Emory University are in the spotlight due to their reaction to pro-Trump messages that were written on campus.
The situation began to play out on Monday when students woke up to find messages written in chalk all over campus that support Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. How bad were these messages? Not very. The worst was a message that read, "Accept the Inevitable: Trump 2016." Certainly nowhere as bad as the messages written in Youngstown State University that showed support for ISIS after the Paris terrorist attacks.
However, the mere utterance of Trump was too much to handle for some liberal students at Emory, and that very afternoon, 40 to 50 students protested. They demanded help from university officials due to feeling "afraid" and being "in pain" due to political words, which in their minds equated to outright intimidation.
The students soon moved on to the administration building, calling out, "It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains."
Jim Wagner, the president of the university, met with the protesters and later outlined four steps that administrators plan to take to address the protesters' concerns.
He proposed "immediate refinements to certain policies and procedural deficiencies; regular and structured opportunities for difficult dialogues; a formal process to institutionalize identification, review and addressing of social justice opportunities and issues; and commitment to an annual retreat to renew [their] efforts."
Granted, school policy indicates that permission must be granted before someone is allowed to use chalk to write on campus, but the situation had evolved far beyond "school policy" before that even became a consideration.
Most of the fallout appears to have subsided, with Wagner left to wonder whether the message was about a "political preference, a candidate preference, or was it a harsher message?"
However the situation is far from over. Now, conservative students are ready to have their voices heard and are reportedly planning a free-speech event for next week.
A gallery of the chalk writings can be viewed here.
