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Students Claim Credit For Shutting Down Justice Clarence Thomas; “Held One of the Most Powerful Men in the Nation Accountable”
GWU Students Claim Credit For Shutting Down Justice Clarence Thomas
WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 26, 2022) – Students at the George Washington University [GWU] are claiming credit for shutting down Justice Clarence Thomas from his teaching position at the law school, suddenly claiming: “We are the lever of power that held one of the most powerful men in the nation accountable,” says public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who called it the “ultimate cancel culture demand.”
By way of explanation a student spokesperson just wrote: “Despite the outward facade that Thomas was simply ‘unavailable’ to teach the class this fall semester, the truth is that we are the reason he is not teaching at our school anymore,”
Banzhaf said of the petitioners who apparently had the power to harm a justice that “these sound like the same students who signed a petition asking their GW university to ban the stick figure used on lighted crosswalk signs on campus because they feel ‘oppressed’ because the figure appears to be that of a white man telling them what to do.”
Banzhaf’s colleague at the GWU Law School, Prof Jonathan Turley, said “the petition makes the familiar complaint that the presence of a faculty member or speaker with opposing views endangers and faculty. The GW petition reflects a growing intolerance and orthodoxy sweeping universities.”
Turley notes that “when I began teaching 30 years ago, universities were bastions of free speech where a wide array of views and values were steadfastly defended. Any attack on one was an attack on all.”
Turley concludes by agreeing with Banzhaf that “today, a palpable level of fear and intimidation exists among many faculty members that they could be the next target of one of these campaigns.”
