By Chris Gast, Right to Life of Michigan Education Coordinator
It wasn’t a busy news week for insanity on Michigan college campuses. It should have been a very busy news week: how often do university professors incite violence or steal from students?
On Monday, we learned that a Wayne State University English professor has been suspended. Dr. Steven Shaviro wrote a Facebook post Sunday justifying the assassination of “right wing” speakers on campus. While the post doesn’t specifically mention prolife people, I highly doubt Dr. Shaviro believes prolife speakers should avoid the fate of being murdered for their views.
On Tuesday, we learned that a Michigan State University professor was forcing her students to subscribe to her “Patriarchy Rebellion Community” website. Dr. Amy Wisner said the website’s purpose was a “safe place to coordinate our efforts to burn everything to the f—ing ground.” Dr. Wisner also said she would donate 100% of the students’ fees to Planned Parenthood.
Did you hear about these stories? Did any “reputable” publications in Michigan focus on these? This isn’t just a case of one professor saying something ridiculous and getting punished for it. This isn’t some low-level political party appointee putting his foot in his mouth. These are two cases of professors at public universities encouraging their students to engage in terrorism.
Yes, terrorism. That’s what you call it when someone commits unlawful violence to further political goals.
On the surface, it seems that at least our universities are somewhat functioning. Wayne State suspended Shaviro. MSU will reimburse students for being forced to subscribe to Wisner’s campaign for violence. But are they really treating these cases like they deserve? Again, these aren’t professors who said something offensive: they are actively calling for terrorism.
Shaviro was suspended with pay. He still gets paid for advocating terrorism.
Wisner was suspended, but it appears that she might have successfully walked away with $120,000 in students’ money. She got paid for organizing terrorism. With the university reimbursing the students, in effect the taxpayers are footing the bill for her organization.
In the last few months, we’ve seen the widespread use of the term “stochastic terrorism.” It’s definition is supposed to mean repeated demonization of a particular group that encourages others to commit terrorism against them. Instead, it’s been deployed lately in an attempt to shame and intimidate people who disagree politically with our current leaders, like President Biden.
So where is all the terrorism happening these days? Apparently right on college campuses, where you are supposed to be highly credentialed to achieve an academic position. It’s been happening at pregnancy centers and churches, victims of a loosely coordinated campaign of vandalism, destruction, and threats of violence. It happened on a front walk in Ionia County last fall, where a prolife volunteer was shot in the chest by a crazed couple who binges on angry left-wing cable news and social media all day.
And then there’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who for months has been egging on her supporters to “fight like hell” for abortion. Given Whitmer’s irresponsible rhetoric directly alluding to violence, you should expect her to feel a particular burden to denounce the violence her supporters commit. After all, following a few shooting incidents at abortion facilities in the 1990s, the entire prolife movement condemned attacks against abortion supporters. People were murdered, and that morally demanded a strong response.
Nobody has been murdered yet in Michigan, but how long? We came within two inches of a murder this fall with the “accidental” shooting of Joan Jacobson. Is it just these two professors making conservative news in the same week? How many more feel emboldened by Whitmer’s words? Whitmer hasn’t condemned the campaign of violence against pregnancy centers and churches in Michigan, including vandalism of a United States Congressman’s office. She never condemned the shooting of Joan. I highly doubt she’s going to mention either of these professors.
Why? I can only reach two conclusions. Either A: she’s too afraid of her own side or effects on her popularity to condemn pro-abortion terrorism. Or B: she privately supports the terrorism.
The amount of political violence committed or encouraged in the last couple of years is becoming a very long list. This article could probably be 1,000 words longer. It’s not showing any signs of slowing down. So, what are we going to do about it?
Michigan citizens, it’s up to you to fix this. This is not normal. If this has a late-stage Weimar Germany feeling to it, it’s not just you being paranoid. We have a president who held a fascist-style speech denouncing citizens as enemies of the state, and whose Justice Department told police not to arrest their activists in the streets breaking federal law. We have a governor who is either too weak to denounce acts of terror happening in her state, or too morally bankrupt to believe it’s wrong.
Biden and Whitmer are useless. The adjectives that best describe Michigan government lately are not “efficient,” or “competent,” or even “politically savvy.” The word I would use is “rage.” Anger. Revenge for not having complete control of Michigan government since 1984. Our leaders in the governor’s mansion and legislature are marinating in anger, and expressing it frequently. Their supporters are seeing it, and being influenced by it. If you want to see “stochastic terrorism” in action, just follow Whitmer on Twitter.
The media isn’t going to fix this. Compare their coverage of advocating terrorism to that kid at the March for Life back in 2019, Nick Sandmann. It looked like he smirked at someone, and our entire Michigan media joined in trying to forever ruin his life. Even some prolife people joined in trashing a kid before all the evidence was released, feeling a moral obligation to condemn someone on their side who misbehaves. That same moral obligation seemingly doesn’t exist in our newsrooms, most of which very obviously make supporting abortion one of their priorities.
Once the truth came out and it showed that young Nick was the victim of harassment by an adult political activist, there were no apologies. There were no retractions. Surely some of these Michigan media outlets probably still believe the kid got what he deserved for the apparent crime of believing babies are human beings. Did you see the national media’s reaction to the Christian school in Nashville that was attacked Monday? It seemed to show more contempt for the people of Tennessee and their public policy choices than the woman who murdered six people.
It’s up to Michigan citizens to fix this. Who votes for the boards of Wayne State and MSU? We do. Who is paying to promote terrorism on those campuses? We are. Who elected our current cast of sorry leaders who can’t even mouth empty platitudes about protecting their own constituents? We did. There is no sane, measured adult in the room that’s going to parachute in and fix this for us. Michigan is in bad shape. Restoring peace and some semblance of normalcy is going to require a lot of effort to repair decades of damage and rot.
Elections have consequences, and when we let our government be run by people who stochastically support acts of terror against political enemies, we’re going to get terrorism of course. How much longer until someone in Michigan isn’t just shot in the chest, but actually murdered? Who will that be? You? Me? Would Whitmer & co. privately cheer? Will they publicly denounce it? And if they did, would they actually mean it?