This might be surprising if it came from any other group, but at this point I suppose it’s simply par for the course. At Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the campus newspaper had the poor taste to publish an editorial from someone regarding the tactics and message of the Black Lives Matter movement. Since it wasn’t written by one of their own and didn’t preach the precise doctrine of the group by chapter and verse the response was predictable I suppose. The group is trying to either force them to print what they want or they will destroy all the copies of it they find and shut the publication down. (Reason)

Students affiliated with the Black Lives Matter anti-racism movement have promised to remove Wesleyan University’s student newspaper, The Argus, from its stands and pressure the student government to deny funding to the paper unless certain conditions are met.

In response to a recent Argus op-ed that was mildly critical of BLM’s tactics, the protest group launched a petition calling for newspaper staff members to undergo diversity training and set up a space on the front page specifically for “marginalized groups/voices.” If no one submits content for this space, Argus staff members are instructed to instead print an advertisement “for your voice.” More than 100 students and staff members have signed the petition.

As Reason’s Robby Soave reports, the more disturbing factor is that the leadership of the student government seems to be onboard with the idea. Man… that must have been some horribly racist stuff that was printed to get the campus into such an uproar. What could it have been? Fortunately we’re provided with the full text and a few samples.

It boils down to this for me: If vilification and denigration of the police force continues to be a significant portion of Black Lives Matter’s message, then I will not support the movement, I cannot support the movement. And many Americans feel the same. I should repeat, I do support many of the efforts by the more moderate activists…

At some point Black Lives Matter is going to be confronted with an uncomfortable question, if they haven’t already begun asking it: Is this all worth it? Is it worth another riot that destroys a downtown district? Another death, another massacre? At what point will Black Lives Matter go back to the drawing table and rethink how they are approaching the problem?

Read the full editorial yourself, but understand that I selected those two paragraphs to excerpt here for a reason. Those were the two worst sections (as I expect they would be defined by BLM members) that I could find in the entire thing. For most of it the author is agreeing with the founders of the movement and the need for action, if not with their methods. It was basically a treatise designed to agree with the motives but questioning the tactics. And for that they want to shut the paper down.

The author interviewed a few people for the article as you will see when you read it and one of the members quickly assailed him, saying, you can’t judge an entire movement off the actions of a few extremists. Unfortunately, in this case you can. Because while not everyone is actually chanting aloud encouragement to murder police officers, the tactics of shutting down any and all conversation and disrupting society as much as possible – in sectors completely removed from any police shootings – are pervasive throughout. Every “leader” you can identify is doing the same thing whether it’s taking away Bernie Sanders’ microphone or screaming down any differing voices during interviews on CNN. It’s not a discussion… it’s a hostage situation. At this point it’s really only the level of open violence which would distinguish BLM from a terrorist organization.

And now they want to shut down the free press unless they can control it letter for letter. The fact that it’s being considered at Wesleyan is, if anything, a sad example of the intersection of the BLM movement and the poison infecting our universities which allows for no dissent from progressive opinion and the creation of trigger warnings and safe rooms. At that school the cowed, liberal masses have run into an oppressive strain of liberal dogma which appears to be close to simply absorbing them whole because they have no will or ability to fight back. If this spreads to other campuses you should probably just shut them all down now.

Oh, and for the parents of the students at Wesleyan… I just checked. The tuition this year is nearly $50K. I hope you’re getting your money’s worth.