The College Fix

By now, many have heard of the University of California-Santa Barbara feminist studies professor who accosted a teenage pro-life activist on campus, and stole and destroyed her sign, and has since been charged with criminal battery.

At the heart of the story is Thrin and Joan Short, two young women and sisters who went after their pro-life sign, camera in hand, and made national headlines as a result of their bravery.

Now their older sister, Mary Rose, a prolife volunteer who frequents college campuses like her younger sisters, has written an article about the incident and the phenomenon of campus groupthink:

Before stealing the sign from Joan and her friends, Miller-Young first held a one-sided debate with the pro-lifers, for the entertainment of her students. She kept talking over them, trying to make them look like idiots because they did not have three degrees like her (honestly, she mentioned her three degrees). Then she upped the ante. She started shouting stuff like, “Are we going to put up with this on our campus?” Then she started a chant, “Tear down the sign. Tear down the sign,” trying to incite the students to do it. The chant died out and the pro-lifers started trying to talk to individual students in the crowd. In response, Miller-Young ran from student to student exhorting them, “Don’t let them split us up. We have to stick together.” What did she mean by that? Now, one meaning of that could be, “Hey, if we’re going to accomplish some mob violence, we have to remain a mob,” and that could very well have been her meaning in part. But, in light of the Vice-Chancellor’s statement, I think she was also saying, “We all must think alike. Don’t let them make us think differently.” …

Their argument reveals a classic case of groupthink. Wikipedia defines groupthink as “a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints, by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences.” Right on the money! …

This phenomenon of groupthink on campuses may be the key to other puzzling accusations we regularly receive on campuses. For example, we are frequently accused of engaging in “hate speech,” or being “haters,” or “peddling hate,” as Vice-Chancellor Young put it. We are there to educate people about the reality of abortion. Who is the object of our supposed hatred? If we are “peddling hate,” who are we trying to make hate whom?

The only answer I can come up with is that, to people caught in the web of groupthink, disagreeing with someone necessitates hating them. Thus, to try to persuade members of the herd to think differently is tantamount to turning them into “haters” of the rest of the herd – just as we are presumed to hate those who disagree with us.

Or maybe “hate” is linked to that other mystery term: tolerance. Tolerance is lauded as an all-encompassing virtue.

Apparently if you don’t “tolerate” whatever someone else does, you must hate the person himself. So by going to college campuses and exposing abortion for what it is, we are being “intolerant” not just of abortion itself but of any woman who had an abortion in the past or might have one in the future, and any men involved as well. Ergo, we hate them, despite the fact that the material we distribute specifically addresses post-abortion healing.

Critical thinking is a lost art on university campuses.

Read the full article.

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