Free thought on campus means free for everyone

It’s not often we get to look askance at both the left and right for the same reason: Passions are being used as an excuse to ignore free speech and conscience.

The latest flash points have erupted at two Pennsylvania universities and there is plenty of shame to go around in the reaction to those incidents.

Let’s start with students at Duquesne University. Last week, the University denied a student-led request to stop an upcoming opening of a Chick-fil-A in the campus food court.

Student “leaders” state unequivocally that Chick-fil-A’s presence in the food court prevents it from being a “safe place” for LGBT students.

One member of the Student Senate criticized the business for having a “questionable history on civil rights and human rights.”

It is true that Chick-filA was established and is still run by the Cathy family. Chick-fil-A’s statement of purpose includes “to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us.” ...

But a danger? Short of cows parachuting out of their TV commercials and onto the quad, we don’t see it.

There is no record of Chick-fil-A discriminating as a matter of policy.

There is a foundation that the Cathys have started that supports married couples.

Straight, married couples. True enough. But that’s personal, not business.

We support the idea of voting with one’s wallet: If you don’t care for what the ownership family stands for, don’t eat there.

What we don’t support is excluding them from the marketplace because you don’t like how they think or worship.

In this case, the Duquesne students need to be reminded that the last place we subjugate freedom of thought, speech and expression to personal validation is a college campus.

Donald Trump Jr. and local radio host Ken Matthews, among others, have taken to mocking the college crowd in this and other instances as “snowflakes.”

We will be impressed should they refer to Pennsylvania GOP senators Joe Scarnati, John Rafferty and Ryan Aument as “Senator Safe Space” for a similar reason.

All three have recently called upon Drexel University to ignore principles of tenure and free speech and fire professor George Ciccariello-Maher for a tweet stating that he wanted to “vomit or yell about Mosul” when he saw a passenger give up a first-class airline seat to a uniformed member of the military.

We completely disagree with the sentiment to the point of outrage.

The only thing the professor gets right is that an individual in uniform is indeed a symbol of all of those who serve.

It is doubtful that the soldier planned the strategy in Mosul or helped former President Bush declare war there, and there is no reason to believe that a soldier in uniform is less than honorable simply by wearing it.

Being overtly rude to soldiers is so 1974.

And like mullets and leisure suits, it should be part of the past.

There is no humor in a holiday-themed tweet regarding white genocide, either.

Professor Ciccariello-Maher is boorish, ungrateful and the worst thing a college professor of global history can be: emotionally immature and intellectually lazy. We are better than that. We are also better than calling for the termination of a professor because of what he thinks.

Yes, we understand the exasperation of Scarnati, Rafferty and especially Aument, who we thank for his service in Iraq, where he was awarded a bronze star.

We respect their outrage, but not the proposed removal of “the nutty professor.” Tenure exists for a reason. Protection of speech, especially of unpopular speech, exists for a reason.

Government officials calling for the loss of a job over speech is no better than college kids excluding a business over the owner’s religion.

A college campus is the last place to forget that.