An Iowa lawmaker plans to introduce a bill that would pull funding from public universities that are spending money to placate students upset about the result of last week’s presidential election.
Representative Bobby Kauffman has written up a piece of legislation that would pull funding from state universities that are spending public funds on “coddling” students who are upset about Donald Trump’s victory in last week’s presidential election.
“I’ve seen four or five schools in other states that are establishing ‘cry zones’ where they’re staffed by state grief counselors and kids and come cry out their sensitivity to the election results,” Kaufmann said. “I find this whole hysteria to be incredibly annoying. People have the right to be hysterical … on their own time.”
Kauffman’s new bill, which he is calling the “suck it up, buttercup” bill, would target state universities who are using public funds to finance “election-related sit-ins and grief counseling above and beyond what is normally available to students.” Kauffman’s bill would pull funding from the offending institution for twice the amount spent on such activities.
Iowa State University spokesperson Scott Ketelsen is fighting back against Kauffman’s bill, arguing that universities are the perfect place for students to come together and have difficult conversations about national affairs. “I think universities are the perfect place to have these types of conversations,” said Scott Ketelsen, director of university relations at the University of Northern Iowa. “It’s where people learn. It’s where they share ideas. I don’t consider it coddling.”
“This election was somewhat unique,” Ketelsen said. “It wasn’t like previous elections, so the response wasn’t like previous elections. And that’s OK. But people have to be able to sit down and have open dialogue and honest communication with one another.”
Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa, argues that Trump’s election is a motivation for some conservative students to fight back against those who have called them racist for refusing to conform to the modern progressive orthodoxy on American college campuses.
“Sometimes it’s hard to keep up on what’s considered good or bad or appropriate or not in any given context,” Hagle said. “At a certain point, and I think this was reflected in the election results, people get tired of it. It’s wearing to always be considered a racist if you don’t toe a particular line and use certain language.”
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com
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