(NaturalNews) Many academics on the secular, progressive Left speak ill of the Crusades, which began around 1095, lasted for hundreds of years (through several Crusades) and which were all sanctioned by the Catholic Church.

Though the First Crusade was actually in response to Muslim conquest which cut off trade routes to the East, and Pope Urban II was asked by the emperor of Byzantium, Alexius I Comnenus, for assistance in beating back advancing Turks, liberal academics save all of their scorn for the West, claiming that the Crusades were launched solely to purge the region of opposition and install Christianity as the dominant religion.

Today, liberal academics at colleges and universities across the U.S. have essentially taken up a modern, albeit secular, "crusade" to rid campuses of opposing political and social viewpoints so they can install their own progressive worldview as the dominant opinion.

One of the key battles is currently taking place on an Ivy League campus – Yale University – where a simple email that defended Halloween costumes some students found obnoxious or "offensive" has unleashed a modern-day Maoist-style "struggle session."

The 'inquisition' inspired by the hard Left

As further reported by IntelliHub:

The literal demands by hard left Yale students to purge University employees over political disagreements came after an email was sent by Yale's Intercultural Affairs Council that requested students not engage in "cultural appropriation" when it came time to choose a Halloween costume.

Associate Master of Silliman College Erica Christakis then made the apparent fireable offense of mildly rebuking the email request by noting that she found the idea that the school was trying to impose choices on students while limiting their freedom of speech to be troubling.

As noted by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), "Christakis drew on her experiences as a child development specialist to question whether a university should dictate what students should and shouldn't wear on Halloween."

"I don't wish to trivialize genuine concerns about cultural and personal representation, and other challenges to our lived experience in a plural community. I know that many decent people have proposed guidelines on Halloween costumes from a spirit of avoiding hurt and offense. I laud those goals, in theory, as most of us do," Christakis wrote.

"But in practice, I wonder if we should reflect more transparently, as a community, on the consequences of an institutional (which is to say: bureaucratic and administrative) exercise of implied control over college students."

How. How "conflicting."

She went on to highlight the inanity of declaring small children racists for wanting to dress up as their favorite Disney characters.

"Is there no room anymore for a child or young person to be a little bit obnoxious... a little bit inappropriate or provocative or, yes, offensive? American universities were once a safe space not only for maturation but also for a certain regressive, or even transgressive, experience; increasingly, it seems, they have become places of censure and prohibition," she said.

Shouting down the opposition

The dramatic overreaction and faux outrage expressed over Christakis' overly tame response is a great example of how the far-Left seeks to stifle debate and essentially criminalize any political and ideological opposition to progressive viewpoints. Talk about your Maoist-inspired thought police.

At Yale, more than 740 anti-free-speech authoritarian pseudo-intellectual students signed a letter that actually claimed Christakis, by expressing her own views, somehow engaged in suppressing viewpoints of minority students. And as usual, most of the signees refused to discuss the matter personally with Christakis and her husband, Master of Silliman College Nicholas Christakis.

From there, a Maoist-inspired mob seeking a "bended-knee apology" emerged.

In recent days, at least 100 students confronted Nicholas and shouted him down, cursing at him and demanding he "be quiet" so they could dominate the conversation and that he apologize for supporting his wife's view. But in the end, he refused to back away from his belief that all students – not just those shouting at him – had the right to speak freely.

The video contains strong language, but you can view it here.

Yes, America, this is really happening on our college campuses today. A lot.

Sources:

IntelliHub.com

UMich.edu

TheFire.org

Freedom.news

Freedom.news