Originally published November 15 2015
Liberal censorship training starts early at the University of Texas
by J. D. Heyes
(NaturalNews) The student body newspaper at the University of Texas in Austin has regularly covered the issue of concealed carry on campus, publishing nearly 20 op-eds in October alone opposing the measure. However, when one student submitted an opposing viewpoint, the PC Police [otherwise known as the editorial staff] rejected the piece, Campus Reform reported.
A junior who serves as the UT-Austin campus leader for Students for Concealed Carry, Allison Peregory, is also the chairman of the school's Young Conservatives of Texas chapter. She told the web publication that she was informed just a few hours after she submitted her op-ed that it would not be published by The Daily Texan.
In her piece, Peregory attempts to downplay concerns from opponents of campus carry since the passage of SB 11 in the state Legislature. She argued that available stats do not bear out predictions that the law will eventually lead to "a never-ending cavalcade of assaults, accidents, suicides and threats." In fact, no concealed carry law passed anywhere else in the country has produced those results.
She explained that despite there being concealed carry in Texas for nearly 20 years, the state "still hasn't devolved into a bloody, lawless wasteland." Neither, she said, have any other states.
Campus Reform noted that her logic and stance did not pass journalistic muster with the paper's editors.
Not equal rights
"First, we are unable to verify that there has never been an incident at a university due to campus carry, as the author stated," editor-in-chief Claire Smith told Peregory in an email explaining her rejection. "Secondly, some of the rhetorical statements and devices of the op-ed may be the opinion of the author, but cannot be published as fact by a newspapers [sic]."
Yes, the misspelling is real.
Smith went on to cite Peregory's assertion that campus carry would be a "total non-issue" in Texas, in support of her latter point in the email, arguing instead that the matter "has already created issues on campus through protests, counter-protests, the resignation of several professors, and the safety concerns of many students, none of which are non-issues."
See how the editors leave it to themselves to decide what are and are not "issues?" This is a primary reason that our founders adopted the First Amendment and also why the states at the time ratified it.
Not willing to take the rejection lightly, Peregory responded the next day to Smith's reasoning. She argued that the paper's rejection is nothing but a suppression of a view she and the other editors don't agree with.
"On March 4, you told SCC's previous regional director that, unlike every other student paper SCC has ever submitted to, the Texan only prints guest columns from students at the university," Peregory wrote. "Now, seven months later, after the Texan has gotten into the practice of running several anti-campus carry pieces a week, you tell me – a student at the university – that you can't print my pro-campus carry op-ed because I failed to prove a negative ... and because it expresses opinions."
Communist coward
Regarding Smith's first objection, Peregory further noted, "Nowhere in my piece does it claim, 'there has never been an incident at a university due to campus carry.'" Rather, she says her piece only states, "Currently, more than 150 U.S. college campuses allow the licensed concealed carry of handguns... [and] not one of those colleges has seen a single resulting assault, suicide attempt, or fatal accident."
When it comes to her claim in her op-ed that "campus carry will be a total non-issue in the Lone Star State," Peregory explained that the statement "is a prediction, not an analysis of the current state of the UT-Austin campus." Like other college campuses across Texas and in Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Mississippi, there were protests after approving campus carry. However, "their predictions of violence never came to be, and their protests eventually died down."
"You've printed plenty of editorials and op-eds expressing very dire predictions of what campus carry will lead to on the UT-Austin campus," she reminds Smith before asking, "are you honestly saying you can't print an op-ed predicting the opposite?"
Campus Reform noted that Smith refused to respond to requests for comment. Not only is she communist-like in her actions, she's also a coward.
Needless to say, the University of Texas is hardly alone in the academic quest to favor Left-wing indoctrination over healthy debate.
Sources include:
CampusReform.org
Freedom.news
NaturalNews.com
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