In this free-for-all-Friday Trent shares some of his favorite examples university student protesters melting down when reality sets in on their actions.
Transcription:
Some things never change. They’re always the same. Today I want to share with you two striking parallels of two pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses that wreak of woke ideology and hubris and privilege. And it is just hilarious to me. It’s something that I just need to talk about here on the show. Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Trent Horn Mondays Wednesdays, we talk apologetics and theology here on the show, but on Fridays it’s free for all. Friday. We talk about whatever I want. And today, I saw recently in the news reports about a protest at Vanderbilt University where students barricaded themselves in the lobby of the dean or the vice president of the school demanding they were protesting the fact that students in the student government could not vote to divest from things related to Israel. So the idea was that the universities now directly supporting genocide because of that.
And so they barricaded themselves into the offices, the dean’s office, demanding all the things they want to demand. And when I was watching the news, I thought I got a really big sense of deja vu related to all of this because I remember 15 years ago watching a similar protest unfold with hilarious results. And even the things that were still similar, even the tones of the voices of the people involved, it never changes though 15 years ago, that was not the Gen Z crowd. That was the uber woke millennials that would give us other sensible millennials a bad name. But I understand why people were getting mad about all of that. It’s not really a generational thing, it’s really more of a college thing. You saw the same thing. Jeremy VINs was in a movie back in the mid nineties called PCU Politically Correct University.
And even back then, they were noting how people like Gen Xers, you have these same privilege, but you called it politically correct back then in the nineties, and we call it woke today. I don’t know if we used the word woke back in 2009. I think it was just social justice is how it was described. In fact, that’s how in this article they talk about it. I’m going to start with the 2009 protest, which is similar to the Vanderbilt one and I’ll share some of the Vanderbilt one. And I have, by the way, the audio of the protest itself for you to listen to. Here’s an article about it written in February of 2009 at the American Catholic. It said last week, a group of student empowering social justice minded students and assorted ragamuffins and rabbel rousers from neighboring colleges. Many affiliated with Takeback, NYU had the stunningly brilliant idea of barricading themselves in a food court in New York University’s Kimmel Center in a historic effort to bring pressure on NYU for its administrative and ethical failings regarding transparency, democracy, and protection of human rights.
Well, I’m sorry, not really to report that the revolution has been brutally crushed. The weekly standard has the details and it quotes from the southern newspaper. It says The courageous if minuscule group of students who occupied the food court in NYU’s Kimmel Center really spoke truth to power demanding among other things, the establishment of a student elected socially responsible finance committee. And in-depth investigation of all investments in war and genocide, profiteers companies profiting from the occupation of Palestine and annual scholarships for 13 Palestinian students. However, they face consequences. They were not gassed, beaten or shot rubber bullets. The security guards did tear down their barricade and brutally inspect their NYU ID cards. And some of them did end up getting suspended. So now I want to play for you, just this is the end of the occupation when security comes in. They’ve allowed some of the protestors to leave and negotiate and they can’t come back. They’ve just been suspended and taken out of the building and now the last bit of their cohort are barricaded in and people are telling them, look, it’s over people. And I love that you have the one most woke person with the camera trying to recreate a sense of order. And the other more profane foul mouse that just want to really start up a lot of antics. So I’ll play it and interject some commentary here and there.
“Come in to talk to, Nope, you’re not negotiators.”
“Our negotiators are liaisons. Are you holding them hostage? What’s going on up there?”
“No. They’re talking to our people that were explaining the disciplinary procedures that are going to take place. We’d like to explain ’em to you.”
“Well, you can explain them to us”
“Please, please call. We would prefer if you release them. We’re using democratic process here. I don’t know if you guys understand that, but what we’re using”
“We’re not releasing them. They’re talking about they’ve been suspended. We’re explaining their rights .
“Can I ask you please? We’re using consensus here. And the way that works is that they come back here. Stop.”
You know what this voice is? It’s smug. It reminds me there was an episode of South Park where everybody gets Priuses and everyone who gets a Prius acts really smug about it and they like to talk to themselves and this sort of tone and close their eyes while they’re talking because it’s really important. So it kind of has a little bit of that valley girl affect to it almost. It is just that tone that comes out when you think that you’re better than someone. That’s what it reminds me of in this, the way that they talk. And you’ll see the same thing in the 2024 Vanderbilt video I’ll show later. But you see it right here. That’s the word that comes off to me. It’s smug.
“Okay? They need to come back here and report to us on what the disciplinary measures are, and we collectively decide why did you lie to us? We collectively, listen. We need to collect. You said you’re going to negotiate and you’re holding them off. Listen, we need to collectively decide. We need to collect, collectively decide how to proceed. And we need our people here in order to do that. Okay? Excuse me. Hey, excuse me.”
I love how this guy thinks he’s calling the shots. We need them to come back and we’re going to have a consensus to decide how we’re moving forward. And they’re just having none of it. And they’re just coming in. And the security’s removing the barricades.
“What are you doing? You cannot not come in here. This is a student’s free space. Excuse me, hands off me. Excuse me. Brutality here. You’re on camera. You’re on camera. You are on camera. You are on camera. Do not use brutality. You may not detain us. You are on camera”
Brutality. It’s literally a guy climbing over a table and walking towards them.
“What are you pursuing here? Because he’s a T. That’s how he does. Listen. We want to negotiate in good faith with you. We are trying to negotiation. We’re explaining. We’re explaining disciplinary procedures that are going to be applied in this case. That will only happen if you agree to negotiate with us at this point in this room. Okay? Well, we’re here in this room and we’re welcoming discussion and dialogue on that. And we will not cooperate with you. I don’t know. We need to use a consensus process to go move forward.”
I love how he still thinks he’s in control. Like, well, we’re not going to let you discipline us until you sit in dialogue and see to our demands the guy’s saying, no, we’re just here. We’re going to tell you how you’re going to be disciplined. Sorry buddy. It’s like listening to my kids when I give them a disciplinary consequence or a punishment saying, no, dad, how about this? No, I’m sorry. I’m the grownup here. You are the child. And frankly, these are children who were probably never disciplined in their lives.
“So you guys need to give us some time to, this is directly democratic and you’re making everyone very upset and it’s very impossible. It’s very much impossible for us to proceed. And we cannot guarantee cooperation from every individual in the room until we”
“There’s no cooperation. You guys need to leave.”
“Okay? Alright. We’re going to use this space to privately discuss. No, you going to stay over here please? Well, you have to use your mouse. No, it’s all, all right. Just pretend you can’t hear us. It’s not warm. Okay. Alright.”
It literally tells the security guard, we want to use this space to privately discuss our consensus actions. Like, no. Well, then you have to use ear. And I feel that the female security guard covers her ears. And I’d be like, you have to use ear muffs. Once again, these are people who’ve been coddled their entire lives, and college is just a very expensive way to continue coddling someone. But as I said, something’s never changed. So here is the footage from the sit-in at Vanderbilt, which was also about issues related to Palestine. And where students think that if they just throw a big enough tantrum, they will get what they want. And so notice once again, it’s like the same kind of smug uber politically correct woke social justice warrior college mindset that exists. It’s like this exact same person forwarded in time by 15 years. So here’s them at Vanderbilt in 2024.
“Guys, for reference, we are currently occupying Daniel Dear Meyer’s office lobby way. We are in here standing in solidarity with one another to make sure that our voices are heard and that the chancellor reinstate the BD S referendum building. How can we storm building our tuition dollars pay for this building.”
“We also storm, yeah, we pay 80 a year for this a year.”
“You are protecting a man.”
“You’re upholding genocide. You’re upholding genocide.”
Think about that. $80,000 a year for an undergraduate degree, $320,000. You just gave someone that money and they invested it. They could be set for life. It is really just a tragedy. And I remember when I was in high school in the early two thousands, the brainwashing we received from guidance. Why do schools have guidance counselors? I really don’t understand that position. I felt like the guidance they gave was never, how could it? There’s hundreds of students. How could they know specifically what an individual student really needs? They don’t know a student well enough to give them proper guidance. Instead, it was just trying to shovel us all off to college. Everyone needed to go to college. Doesn’t matter what you get. Doesn’t matter what degree you get. And if you go to a bigger name school, that’s even better. Go to Vanderbilt. Oh, go to Harvard. Get $400,000 in debt because it’ll be worth it. And we were lied to. And just look at what happens in these situations. It’s just such a tragic waste. You
“Are a coward. You are a coward. You are a coward. Daniel DeMeyer is a coward. Okay?”
” His staff said that he was not in the moment, so he couldn’t meet with us. He was in that elevator five minutes ago. Shane–”
I can’t help but laugh at the strained tone. He was here an hour ago. He was already here. But notice still, I still see it’s that same kind of sh, the shrill, smug voice is one that makes me laugh the most. So then following up though, here is a news, an interview with the students after they’re released from being arrested and they take pride in it. And then there’s other liberal members of the community that back them and encourage this kind of behavior. cheering on the last member of their group to be released.
“I went to jail today. I was arrested at about 5:00 AM in my own university. I was taken, I was handcuffed, brought in the back of a police car and taken downtown.”
“As for the students arrested, the Nashville Community Bail Fund helped pay for some to be released. They hope students won’t stop standing for what they believe in.”
“These children who decided to take a stand about something that they believe will be criminally impacted for the rest of their lives, whether we get them out on bail or not. And so I think it’s a horrible lesson for Vanderbilt to send to kids.”
But here’s it. That’s totally disingenuous. This person does not believe. I love when young people stand up for what they believe in because that group, they’re not going to bail out. If pro-life college students barricaded an abortion facility, that group would never bail them out of jail, would never bail them out because oh good, they’re standing up for what they believe in. No, it’s about defending their particular political views or just those who are in charge. If you block traffic for climate change or Palestine, or block University campus for a liberal, cause you get a slap on the wrist. But if you do it for, let’s say, a pro-life, cause you barricade an abortion facility, cause you can be a felon. You go to prison for 10 years. That’s what people are facing right now under the Biden administration. So the state is certainly not neutral in these regards.
I am grateful though that Columbia University finally sent in the riot squad, police officers, hundreds of them to clear the encampment there. And I think the students who are at that school will be expelled if they took over the hall. But it’s just, it blows my mind Here. I got to play a clip for you. One of the leaders of the Columbia protest, they barricaded themselves in Hamilton Hall, which they renamed Hind Hall and said, well, you have to let us have food, bring us food or we’re going to starve. She called it humanitarian aid demand. You can’t make this up here it goes.
“First of all, we’re saying that they’re obligated to provide food to students who pay for a meal plan here, but–”
“You mentioned that there was a request that food and water be brought in, unless I misunderstood, to allow it to be brought in.”
“I mean, well, I guess it’s ultimately a question of what kind of community and obligation Columbia feels it has to its students. Do you want students to die of dehydration and starvation or get severely ill, even if they disagree with you? If the answer is no, then you should allow basic, I mean, it’s crazy to say because we’re on an Ivy League campus, but this is like basic humanitarian aid. We’re asking for could people please have a glass of water.”
And we need to crack down. These kinds of protests will continue to happen, especially like blocking roads to airports, highways that can cause real problems. If you’re trying to get to the hospital, these things will. Or what about damaging pieces of art? Because the climate change, throwing paint cans on them, tomato soup, that stuff’s going to keep happening as long as it is a slap on the wrist. And no, honestly, people who block highways, especially people who attack works of art, they should go to prison, they should go to prison, they should have some jail time. These people will continue outlandish vandalism, cultural vandalism, and they’ll get bigger and bigger targets as long as they get a slap on the wrist. But if these people know that they could spend years in jail for what they do, those protests are going to stop right away.
So that’s something that we need to have that kind of punishments that are happening here. So I see here in this piece from Vanderbilt Hustler saying that three students have been expelled, one suspended, 22 issue disciplinary probations. That’s a start. They all should have been expelled, but it’s at least a start. And people will probably say, I’m the world’s youngest boomer for my curmudgeon attitude. Well, maybe I don’t mind that kind of a label. That’s what if being a wise millennial makes me just a really young boomer, well then so be it. So although nothing against my common sense levelheaded, gen Z audience who listened to this podcast, I’m rooting for you guys. Some of the best people in Gen Z are working for us at Catholic Answers are working for this podcast and making it possible. So I’ve got Gen Z people who volunteer and who work for Catholic Answers and Council of Trent. They’re doing tremendous work. So they are credit to their generation, that’s for sure. But thank you guys so much for listening. I hope you have a very blessed weekend.