CARRBORO, N.C. — Not too long ago, conservatives were so concerned about their free speech being squashed at UNC-Chapel Hill that they established the School for Civic Life and Leadership to give themselves a safe space to express their views. Now, they’re trying to suppress the speech of the campus newspaper. What a bunch of hypocrites.
On April Fool’s Day, the Daily Tar Heel ran a series of satirical articles with titles like “Satire: Trump orders ALE in Chapel Hill to be replaced with ICE agents” and “Satire: UNC brings back DEI — for whites.” I couldn’t find the articles because they’ve been censored, but what’s offensive is that a school as powerful as the University of North Carolina would pressure the newspaper to pull them.
They also put up a video mocking white students who live on North Campus for having little contact with students on South Campus where the population is darker. I watched that video. I didn’t find it very funny, but I didn’t find it offensive, either. They were trying and they were exposing an issue that’s got more than a grain of truth to it.
The University issued a statement condemning the satirical edition, calling it “racist and insensitive.” I read it and it was neither. In a world where the socalled Secretary of Defense is demoting African American and women officers because of their race and gender, hand-wringing over the sensibilities of white students is ridiculous. The Harvard Lampoon would never make it on today’s campus…