If I were the conventional college student, during my undergraduate years I probably would be keeping my mouth shut, paying open-jawed homage to everything my professors say, and joining a few benign clubs to boost my résumé. I was already an "individual of interest" on campus, but I was officially deemed persona non grata once I took the plunge and attempted to start up a chapter of Youth for Western Civilization.
Providence College, an ostensibly Catholic institution, seemed to me like a perfect fit for a chapter of Youth for Western Civilization since the school already requires a 20-credit, two semester course on Western Civilization and has received top ratings from the conservative Cardinal Newman Society. I was wrong.
The first sign of trouble was when our group's request to bring former Congressman Tom Tancredo to campus for a speech on the topic of illegal immigration was rejected by the college without any legitimate reason. Congressman Tancredo defiantly decided to come anyways and gave a speech at the gates of Providence College which resulted in great deal of media coverage.
As the start of the 2009-2010 school year drew near, I contacted the members of Student Congress and attempted to have our chapter officially recognized. By becoming an officially recognized club, we would have the ability to book rooms, host events on campus and generally convey our point of view to other students in a respectable fashion. Despite numerous delays, including changes to the club recognition process while we were in medias res, the members of our chapter patiently waited for nine months in order to get a hearing. After various administrators determined that our mission statement did not conflict with that of the college, the process dictated we would be put before two full sessions of Student Congress.
These two meetings with Student Congress could justifiably be likened to the Salem witch trials, as every possible rumor was deemed truth, every lie as true as gold, and every accusation beyond the pale of doubt. The few sane voices in the room were drowned out by the mass of ill-informed leftists who were on a divine mission from the gods of multiculturalism to prevent our club from receiving a fair hearing.
This farce included administrators arriving to claim that our mere presence on campus would be intimidating to the student athlete population on campus and would dissuade further recruits from wanting to attend Providence College. Additionally, a self-described woman of color protested that "to already have to struggle so much as a person who looks like me in a classroom daily, I don't appreciate having to struggle against a group in my extracurricular activities that has stigmas like this." These and other absurd indictments continued until, eventually, the feel-good culture of the accusatory echo chamber reigned and Student Government voted us down, pausing only to applaud their own courage.
What is most significant about this whole ordeal is that Student Congress was even given the power to vote us down. In order to become an officially recognized group on campus, we needed two-thirds approval of the notoriously left-leaning Student Congress members. In other words, Providence Student Congress is vested with the power of de facto censorship of any political opinions they disagree with. This power can be considered nothing other than Alexis de Tocqueville's "tyranny of the majority" and is an affront to the entire American political tradition.
If an unscrupulous band of college-aged bureaucrats has the authority on a college campus to determine which political opinions can and cannot be heard and which groups of students are and are not allowed to organize in defense of their culture, what can be said about that campus's devotion to intellectual and moral integrity? If these practices of censorship and suppression are present in the very place where, if anywhere, students are supposed to hear both sides of issues and decide where they stand for themselves, what are we to think about the devotion to truth that is said to be fundamental to our education?
"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as public Liberty, without Freedom of Speech." - Benjamin Franklin, 1722
