U. of Chicago student 'hate'-bombed for socialism post

FPI / March 10, 2020

A student at the University of Chicago said she has received threats of violence after saying that socialism is more dangerous than the coronavirus.

The university's Institute of Politics ran an Instagram campaign last week which gave students a chance to fill in the blank after "I vote because..."

Evita Duffy said she was threatened after she was seen in a video holding a sign which said: "I vote because the coronavirus won't destroy America, but socialism will."

Duffy, who describes herself as a conservative Hispanic woman, wrote in an op-ed in the student paper that she hoped her "vote" message might "encourage a lively and robust debate on economics," but instead she received an "onslaught of online hate and threats of violence."

"Fellow students attacked my character, my intellect, my family, my appearance, and even threatened me with physical violence, using foul and offensive language," Duffy said. "I was called a racist and a xenophobe. Some compared me to animals. Others declared that they would personally stop me from voting, and many defended the personal attacks, saying I deserved to be bullied and that I don’t belong at the University of Chicago on account of my beliefs. I was told by many that I was the most hated person on campus. It was frightening. It was also hurtful, since some of the attacks came from people I considered friends."

Duffy said one person warned she should have to face "a brick wall." She was also told she must "support a movement [socialism] that eliminates violence on a systemic level or face the consequences."

Writing for PJ Media on March 9, columnist Stephen Green noted: "Given that socialism has killed roughly 25,000 times more people than the COVID-19 coronavirus has, and that there are a lot more people pushing for socialism than there are for COVID-19, it might seem uncontroversial to insist that socialism is more dangerous than COVID-19. Except for a very few radical environmentalists, COVID-19 doesn't exactly have anyone cheering it on. Socialism, despite its massive death toll, still enjoys millions of adherents and proponents, many right here in the USA."

Green continued: "Most alarmingly, you'll find them clustered on our college campuses, where you'd think that people would be smart enough and well-informed enough to understand that 100,000,000 (deaths due to socialism) is a much bigger number than 4,000 (deaths due to COVID-19). But of course you wouldn't actually think that, because as a devoted consumer of news, you're undoubtedly aware that our former institutions of higher learning have become hotbeds of dangerous silliness."

Free Press International