America is again engulfed in a barrage of grievance-driven tumult brought to us by victim-focused racial identity demagogues, who have long-preferred theatricality over reality. Although the flood of media attention on purported incidences of racism at the University of Missouri has forced the school’s president to resign, it also overshadowed another vexing social malady.
While the still-unproven reports of swastikas drawn with human feces and people yelling the N-word at the University of Missouri-Columbia captivated the country, a string of sexual assaults have occurred at Vanderbilt University and have gone virtually unnoticed by America’s sanctimonious national media.
Officials at Vanderbilt say three sexual assaults took place between Oct. 29 and Nov. 2. Unlike at the University of Missouri, where student association president Payton Head admitted there hasn’t been a rise in racist events on his campus, there has been an increase in reported instances of sexual assault at Vanderbilt.
So far this year, 20 sexual assaults have been reported at Vanderbilt. That’s two more than last year, according to federal government data. There were 17 sexual assault cases reported in 2013—one of which involved two former Vanderbilt University football players—and 13 in 2012.
Like racism, sexual assaults on campus are hardly isolated to one area, or unknown on a national level.
The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s “Crime on Campus” report revealed that the rise in sexual assaults reported on campuses across Tennessee jumped 77 percent between 2013 and 2014. Currently, college campuses across the country, including Vanderbilt, are engaged in the national “It’s On Us” campaign. The White House-endorsed, week-long movement comes equipped with t-shirts, tips, and star-studded videos aimed at encouraging college students to take action to prevent sexual assaults.
Despite this well-intentioned effort, three women in one week reported being sexually assaulted on campus at Vanderbilt. Yet, no one called for Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos to resign.
Why not?
Is not a rise in rape that potentially threatens over half the population on one campus more dangerous than hurtful words aimed at less than a tenth of another?
Media sensationalists celebrated the sacking of Mizzou President Tim Wolfe while failing to utter a single syllable explaining what could’ve been done to slow or stop the seemingly episodic instances of racism on his campus that first ignited a media firestorm. This could very well be because, short of instituting an Orwellian Speech Police Force, you can’t prevent people from saying things you disagree with, no matter how offensive. But that didn’t stop so-called journalists, especially black ones, from insinuating that Wolfe’s resignation was warranted.
On MSNBC’s Morning Joe, both Eugene Robinson and Jonathan Capehart failed to articulate any specific steps Wolfe could have taken—yet both cheered on the taking of Wolfe’s scalp by the Missouri mob.
The tragedy, unbelievably, isn’t that by choosing to popularize allegations of racism at one campus, they ignored an all-together more serious problem at another. It’s that the Missouri mob-manipulated media has pushed us headlong down a slippery slope of visceral action without thought, process, or perspective.
You know, the things you’re supposed to learn in college.
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