Opinion

Brace Yourself For Racial Activism In College Football

Scott Greer Contributor
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The University of Missouri football team can now be rest assured that its season is saved after 32 striking African-American players got what they wanted when the university system president Timothy Wolfe resigned Monday.

However, the result of this protest for the rest of America was not so comforting.

The reason why these players wanted Wolfe gone: He didn’t bring the hammer down on alleged racial events. (RELATED: Missouri President Resigns After Football Strike)

These incidents include a student government leader allegedly having the n-word hurled at her by unknown assailants in a pick-up truck, and the discovery of a swastika made out of human excrement in a dormitory bathroom.

The players embarked on their boycott as an act of solidarity with Mizzou graduate student Jonathan Butler’s hunger strike. Butler has declared he will not eat anything until Wolfe stepped down. (RELATED: University Of Missouri Football Players BOYCOTT FOOTBALL Over Black Activist’s Hunger Strike)

And we thought those Yale students offended by an email were nutty. (RELATED: First They Came For Free Speech At Yale)

Missouri even had a student confrontation with Wolfe that eerily resembled the now-famous incident at the Ivy League school. At the SEC college, the students demanded on Friday that their president define “systematic oppression.” He apparently gave the wrong answer, and the offended students screamed at him like he was a misbehaving school boy.

Breitbart’s Milo Yiannopoulos aptly noted how similar the Yale incident resembled the actions of Mao Zedong’s notorious Red Guards. The Mizzou incident proves that this disturbing activity isn’t limited to New Haven. And in Columbia, the activists got the scalp they so desired.

The striking football players’ list of demands further strengthened the Red Guard comparison. Besides calling for the “immediate removal” of President Wolfe, the athletes wanted him to give a full-hearted apology in which he acknowledged his “white male privilege” and his part in promoting systematic oppression of minorities.

They also wanted expanded racial quotas for the school’s staff, and a stronger focus on politically-correct indoctrination when it comes to curriculum.

Of course the demands were silly, and should be expected to be so when the incidents that have these students up in arms are either isolated events or just plain ridiculous. The fact that anyone would consider a poop swastika the work of neo-Nazis is pretty deluded. Nazis may love brown shirts, but that doesn’t mean they like to draw their honored icon out of brown matter.

The cases of harassment, if true, are fairly legitimate complaints. Without suspects, however, it’s hard for the school to do anything about it except issue condemnations. It’s also not within a university’s jurisdiction to punish speech, no matter how offensive it is. For the one incident where they could identify a culprit, administrators did punish the offender to the best of their abilities.

But these few, isolated cases does not mean the school has a culture of bigotry that the president should focus all his power on crushing. And the school is certainly not promoting any racism with the millions it spends on diversity programming and teaching cultural sensitivity.

The only grievance that actually involves an action by Wolfe relates to how he handled the Black Lives Matter protesters who illegally blocked a school parade. Considering they were not following the rules and were ruining a carefully-planned event, it’s understandable that the president refused to meet with them and aggressively moved his car beyond them. To the protesters, however, this was an unforgivable offense and they wanted his head for it.

The most laughable reason for the student strike, given by Butler, is that a state law barring Planned Parenthood from campus is an injustice perpetuated against African-Americans.

It was inevitable that Wolfe would have to step down. How he can hold out when the most privileged group of students — aka revenue athletes — threaten to stop doing their jobs and have the backing of the coaching staff is anybody’s guess. (RELATED: Mizzou Head Coach Shows Support For College Football Players On Strike)

It was also inevitable that the howls for blood would end with the president’s dismissal. The Columbia campus chancellor was also forced to step down Monday and the university promised to create an entire “diversity task force” to assuage the fevered mob. Those concessions just encouraged the activists to promise to released another round of demands. (RELATED: BLOODBATH! Another Mizzou Official Forced To Resign)

What’s rich is that the most powerful element in the anti-Wolfe coalition has more to account for than administrators who are unwilling to hunt down alleged racists.

Last year, ESPN’s Outside the Lines and Vice Sports published multiple reports exposing Mizzou football’s rape culture. Unlike most stories on various universities’ supposed problems with rape that rely on bogus statistics and false claims, these reports accurately reported on a serious problem.

Multiple Mizzou players since 2008 have allegedly gotten away with sexual assault. Outside the Lines even declared that the college had the second-highest number of sexual assault claims made against athletes of any school the program studied. According to OTL, several cases were never prosecuted because the victim felt pressured to drop charges.

There was a possible case of a gang rape by football players against another student-athlete that went un-investigated. Former running back Derrick Washington was able to beat two assault allegations before he was kicked out of a school for a third accusation that resulted in a criminal conviction in 2010.

According to Washington’s mother, coaches were still advocating for the RB to stay on the team, even if he was charged with sexual assault.

In 2014, charges were never pressed against then-Mizzou wide receiver Dorian Green-Beckham for domestic assault. However, Green-Beckham was dismissed from the team and eventually made his way to a school that demonstrated earlier this year a similar case of hypocrisy to Missouri’s current protest success: the University of Oklahoma.

In March, Oklahoma was rocked by a video depicting drunk frat boys shouting a racist chant on a party bus. For that incident, OU’s president David Boren appeased incensed students by expelling the identified students in the video and shuttering their entire fraternity — Sigma Alpha Epsilon. The only problem was the expulsion was a gross violation of the students’ constitutional rights and would likely be easily dismissed in court. (RELATED: OU Could Be Making A Huge Mistake With Its Expulsions)

But these activists care little about constitutional rights when it impedes them getting what they want.

OU also imposed more “diversity training” on students in the wake of the controversy. (RELATED: U. Of Oklahoma To Force FIVE HOURS Of Mandatory ‘Diversity Training’ On All Students)

One of the leading forces in the Oklahoma case that demanded justice was the football team. Jut like Mizzou’s football squad, Oklahoma had several players with legal issues that were overlooked and quickly forgiven by administrators. Besides Missouri transfer Green-Beckham, other players had attacked female co-eds and were not expelled for those atrocious acts. In fact, they were given relatively lenient punishments by the school. (RELATED: Oklahoma: Tough On Racism, Weak On Assault, Burglary)

Seeing what happened to Wolfe, it’s easy to see why Boren was so eager to violate the law to soothe this powerful constituency. If he hadn’t, it would’ve been his own head on the chopping block.

In many ways, what happened to Wolfe was the chickens coming home to roost. Colleges throughout the country do everything possible to safeguard their athletes who play revenue sports. They cover up their crimes. Administrators allow them to cheat in class and fabricate their grades. There’s even cases of some programs using sex – either with prostitutes or co-eds – as a recruitment tool.

The reason why these offenses continue to take place is due to the millions of dollars these kids bring in revenue on the field. That’s why they hold so much power and are able to do what they please without any serious repercussions.

Now in Missouri, they’re turning that massive power against the very hand that feeds them. Jonathan Butler was smart enough to know that his demands would only be met if he had the full support of a significant number of athletes. That’s why the example set in Columbia sets a very dangerous precedent for American higher education.

The very monster administrators are responsible for creating can now be harnessed for achieving the partisan goals of left-wing activists, particularly racial activists. What the football players demanded was not something that benefited the student body or the school – it simply wanted more power given to a specific demographic at the expense of the student body as a whole. (RELATED: Mizzou Students Form A ‘No Media Safe Space’ To Block Reporters)

And this was all started over a few trivial incidents. Former star Michael Sam even said that he couldn’t recall any racial incidents when he attended Missouri and was sad to see Wolfe go. (RELATED: Michael Sam: ‘I Did Not Experience Any Racial Issues’ At University Of Missouri)

Deans and professors now have to face the reality that they are hostages to left-wing campus agitators. They could face constant intimidation over expressing an unpopular viewpoint. If they don’t do some kind of action to rectify a perceived injustice, they will lose their job. If they don’t violate the rights of some students to appease more favored enrollees, they will have to endure an improvised show trial.

Administrators had to face this once before in the tumultuous 1960s. They’re now seeing it again in the 2010s.

It’s clear that the next Mizzou president will be more acquiescing to what the activists demand. That’s a bad omen for free speech, student rights, due process and a whole host of other legal protections that the campus Left wants to do away with. Not to mention any statues, textbooks or building names they find offensive. (RELATED: Missouri Students: Thomas Jefferson A ‘Racist Rapist,’ Campus Statue Needs To Go)

The University of Missouri School of Law has already issued an “Orwellian” social media code that attempts to impinge on speech rights. It’s very likely it could be applied to the entire campus. (RELATED: Law School Student Government Tries To Ban Being Mean On The Internet)

Right now, the future of higher education looks remarkably bleak.

The only way to reverse course is if a few brave students, administrators and state legislators begin to stand up against the precious snowflake totalitarians turning the Ivory Tower into an indoctrination camp.

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