Campus Reform: Indiana University - Bloomington

Indiana University alum and founder of the American Spectator, R. Emmett Tyrrell, shares his story of fighting leftist double standards in a column for the Patriot Post. 

Tyrrell explains that when members of a protest movement, such as environmentalists, are disorderly in a Senator’s office, liberals remain “tranquil,” as exemplified when protestors disrupted Senator Joe Lieberman’s office in 2009, Representative Frank Riggs’ office in 1997, or any of the many instances when Michael Moore bombards a congressional office with cameras and microphones.

But when conservative activist James O’Keefe disrupted Senator Mary Landrieu’s office, in what one could argue was similar fashion to Michael Moore’s quests to expose the truth, all hell broke loose and he was charged with federal crimes.  This is not to say whether what O’Keefe did was wrong or right -- we still don’t know all the facts -- but this is just one example of the liberal double standard.

Mr. Tyrrell recognized this liberal double standard as a college student and wanted to expose it for what it was.

UPDATE: To continue to help raise funds to bring Tom Woods to speak at Indiana University, a press release has gone out on behalf of IU's YAL chapter. Here's the text of the release; please share it with any bloggers or members of the media who might be able to give this ridiculous situation some attention! (And don't forget to donate to the chapter's fund for Woods' speaker's fee!)

ARLINGTON, VA -- The Economics Department and Indiana Memorial Union Board Lectures Committee of Indiana University-Bloomington refused to host Mises Institute senior scholar and economist Dr. Thomas E. Woods, Jr. on campus, citing the blatantly false excuse that Woods, a graduate of Harvard and Columbia and a New York Times bestselling author, lacked "sufficient academic credibility."

The Young Americans for Liberty chapter whose request to host Woods was denied is fighting back against this gross academic bias and power play with the assistance of CampusReform.org, a website for conservative and libertarian student activists, and the national Young Americans for Liberty organization.

Sam Spaiser, president of the IU Young Americans for Liberty group, has taken swift action to bring Woods to IU with or without the school's assistance. "It is clear that the Lectures Board rejected Woods based on philosophical differences, not his lack of credibility," he said. "This is a ridiculous decision based on false pretenses and amounts to nothing more than ideological injustice."

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Sam Spaiser and I'm the President of Young Americans For Liberty at Indiana University Bloomington.

For the latest print edition of the Indiana Standard, a new conservative/libertarian newspaper started by Danny Orthwein and Spenser Burns, Trent Morton wrote an article titled "Economics Department Snuffs Tom Woods."

It's about how the IU Bloomington chapter of Young Americans For Liberty tried to bring Dr. Thomas Woods to campus through the Union Lecture Board Committee, which brings speakers like Richard Dawkins and John Edwards, speakers who cost anywhere from five to ten times as much as Woods does.