By Ryan Foley, WESTERN JOURNALISM July 6, 2020
A college student in Texas has become the latest victim of cancel culture. It appears that Academia has absolutely no tolerance for any dissenting opinions on Black Lives Matter, whether among students or faculty members.
Ashleigh Brock, who attended the Baptist-affiliated Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, posted some videos on social media criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement. A graphic in a Campus Reform article captured the essence of one of her videos accurately.
In the video, Brock acts out the reactions of people in three different scenarios: where a black person kills a black person, where a black person kills a white person and where a white person kills a black person.
In the first two scenarios, Brock’s facial expressions demonstrated indifference while in the third scenario, Brock put a graphic of fire in the background to reflect the violence that has broken out at Black Lives Matter protests.
In other words, the Black Lives Matter movement is hypocritical because it only seems to care about certain black lives.
This did not sit well with one of the Black Lives Matter movement’s supporters. In a now-deleted tweet, the Twitter user raged: “There needs to be serious consequences for these actions (in actions I mean racism).”
Sadly, Brock did face “serious consequences” for exercising her First Amendment rights by expressing a politically unpopular position that many Americans agree with but may be too afraid to admit out loud.
As HSU President Eric Bruntmyer acknowledged in a video, “the student associated with this incident is no longer enrolled in Hardin-Simmons University.”
So, Brock was expelled from Hardin-Simmons University for refusing to bow to the Black Lives Matter movement, as the president of her former college so pathetically did in his hostage tape. Apparently, Bruntmyer has no problem tying himself to a movement whose leader wants to “burn down this system” if he does not get his way.
Bruntmyer slammed Brock’s social media post as “deeply disappointing and unacceptable” and “not reflective of the Christian values of our institution or the vast majority of our community.”
Yet, in another one of Brock’s social media posts, which also got the left all bent out of shape, Brock uttered a phrase that serves as the very foundation of Christianity: “All lives matter.” The video she made contrasting the three hypothetical reactions to losses of life was only meant to reinforce that point.
Unfortunately, the fact that Brock received such push back and the potentially life-altering consequence of expulsion should not come as a surprise. Just last month, a principal at a Vermont school lost her job for making social media posts critical of Black Lives Matter.
In the secular hotbed of Vermont and the most conservative parts of Texas, the message remains the same: “Criticize Black Lives Matter at your own risk.” In reality, conservatives in academia or anyone who deviates slightly from liberal orthodoxy, faces enormous risk.
As actor and comedian Rob Schneider told radio host Chris Stigall, “If you do criticize or tend to be not directly along a liberal stand, you can get murdered.” While Schneider’s statement may have been a bit hyperbolic, he was correct to point out that deviating from the left comes with consequences.
The cancel culture phenomenon is not limited to the United States. A high school student in England was expelled for daring to point out a biological fact: there are only two genders. Now, Ashleigh Brock has faced the wrath of the mob for proclaiming an equally true statement: “All Lives Matter.”
With all of the risks that come with holding conservative views on campus, it’s no wonder that Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk described conservative college students as “modern day culture warriors.”
The consequences of allowing liberals to capture academia in their long march through the institutions are more obvious than ever before. Should the cancel culture hawks that dominate college campuses ever obtain power in America, the First Amendment in the United States as we know it could very well be gone for good.
Hardin-Simmons University is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, which is, by far, the largest church in the US Evangalical movement.