Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on how Christians are being depicted on some campuses:
No civilization has brought about more liberty and equality than western civilization, and that is due, in large part, to the contributions of Catholicism. Yet on many campuses, not only is western civilization being trashed—while primitive cultures are being celebrated—Christianity is under attack. More than that, the western haters have turned their academic guns on Christians themselves.
“Christian Privilege” classes, workshops, and lectures have been in vogue for the past several years. At George Washington University, diversity workshops teach that “Christians enjoy a privileged, easier life than their non-Christians counterparts, and that Christians possess ‘built-in-advantages’ today.”
In other words, Hispanic Catholics who clean the toilets of filthy-rich atheist students and their pampered professors are the “privileged” ones.
At Rutgers University, a guest lecturer from Fairleigh Dickinson University, Khyati Joshi, told students a few years ago that “white Christian privilege” was responsible for slavery. She did not say who is responsible for slavery in a large part of the non-white world today.
Florida State University has been in the news lately for promoting “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or what is really racism—racism against white people, especially white Christians. Some of what follows, the university now says, is being discontinued, but there is reason to doubt it.
Students are being told in some classes that they must list their “identities.” One student was told to list himself as a white, heterosexual, Catholic male. To what end? The point of the assignment, everyone knew, was to shame him.
Another student, a female, said that her professor was known for going off on “white privilege” and “systemic racism,” and that if any students disagreed with him, their grades suffered. In fact, when she wrote a paper defending Christianity as an institution that helped to end slavery, she received an “F.”
The diversity, equity and inclusion gurus on campus have training programs where participants learn the four expressions of “Religious Oppression,” all of which blame white Christians for oppressing everyone else. The Indians and Pakistanis, and rival African tribes, according to this narrative, never butcher each other.
The proponents of this left-wing propaganda, which is today called scholarship, say that observing Christmas is an example of Christian hegemony. If that is the case, we need more of it. “Christian Privilege,” they say, refers to “the view that Christian beliefs, language, and practices do not require any special effort to be recognized, as they are embedded into the U.S. American culture.”
Leaving aside the fact that there is no such thing as a Christian “language” (these idiots should be fired for incompetence), why should it be considered controversial for a nation founded by Christians to celebrate its history? What exactly do they do in countries founded by Jews, Hindus and Muslims—celebrate Christianity? The USSR and Communist China were founded by secular genocidal maniacs and their celebrations were never criticized by the same people at war with Christians.
Classroom instruction at Florida State also includes discussion of the “Matrix of Oppression,” or what some call the “Matrix of Domination.” It is basically a list of victimizers and victims.
The bad guys include white people, “biological” men (meaning real men), “gender conforming men” (meaning sane men), rich people and “naturalized citizens” (meaning those who didn’t break the law coming here). The good guys, the victims, are non-whites, “biological” women (meaning real women), “transgender, genderqueer, intersex” (meaning the sexually confused), and “undocumented” people (meaning those who crashed our borders illegally).
Asking university staff and students to swallow this moonshine is not without consequence. In 2021, Florida State had to settle out of court with Jack Denton, the Student Senate President, after he sued for having his First Amendment rights violated. Here’s what happened.
Denton sent a text to his fellow Catholic students complaining about Black Lives Matter and the ACLU. A student who read the text, and was offended, shared Denton’s private correspondence with his friends, triggering massive retaliation against him. They distorted his remarks and he was removed from his Senate office. When he brought this to the attention of university officials, they refused to do anything about it. That’s when he sued.
Any person—of any race, ethnicity, religion, sex, or sexual orientation who apologizes for who he is—simply because of real and contrived offenses committed by people who share his identity, needs help. Unless the bullies on the Left are told to take a hike—and sued when appropriate—this madness will continue.
