The past few years have been challenging for the social atmospheres of colleges and universities. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement—pro-Palestine advocates calling for institutions to abstain from financially supporting Israel—and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts have been under attack from the Trump administration. Orders from the President attacking higher education have included the withholding of federal funding, the gutting of DEI, the elimination of student visas and even deportations of international students and legal residents. It is certainly a scary time to work at or attend a college, and yet some aim to turn the temperature up a few notches higher.
At the University of Oklahoma, a psychology student was tasked with writing a report about an article concerning social development and gender norms. Instead, the student, Samantha Fulnecky, decided to write a paper about how she believes gender norms were set in stone by God and that transgender people are being deceived by Satan. The teaching assistant gave the paper a well-deserved failing grade, and in response, Fulnecky reported the situation to the right-wing advocacy group Turning Point USA.
Closer to home—and I assume somewhat inspired by the Fulnecky martyrdom—a Vassar College student informed The Daily Wire about the Christianity-themed Burlesque show from this past November, after meeting with college administrators who refused to cancel the event. This particular Burlesque event was housed in Vassar’s chapel, and according to The Miscellany News, “While some performances involved the traditional strip-tease, others more closely resembled lip-synched dance numbers.” It is not difficult to understand why Christians on campus were offended by a “strip-tease” not only occurring, but being sanctioned by the school in the same place they consider sacred. In the Daily Wire article, it was reported that the Institutional Equity and Title VI Coordinator, Brian Van Brunt, allegedly claimed that if the Burlesque event had been themed around Islam instead of Christianity, it would have been canceled. It is concerning that this conscious double standard did not cause its cancellation right then and there.
However sensitive this situation may be, I cannot think of a good justification for reporting the performance, which should reside inside campus discussion and offices, to culture war outrage machines like Turning Point and The Daily Wire. If you look at the comments on the article about Vassar, you will see why.
One commenter said, “A little toluene and a cigarette lighter might come in handy. Perhaps if you lit the actors on fire as they left the church it would stop!” Of course, this could be interpreted simply as dark humor. However, this remark comes off as much more threatening when read from my perspective, a student at Vassar, seeing a stranger advocating for the murder of other students in my community. Many comments focused on the theme of the aforementioned quote, where the Vassar student said an administrator told them that if the Burlesque show was themed around Islam instead of Christianity, it would have been treated differently by his office. Of course, Daily Wire readers interpreted this anecdote as confirming their Islamophobic beliefs. It makes me seriously uncomfortable to think that random users on the internet would accuse my Muslim peers and friends of being willing to commit mass violence. The decision to leak the Burlesque drama to the conservative press allowed for these disgusting and bigoted accusations to spawn.
While the power of Daily Wire readers like “Bubbaloo” and “DoucheVader” over Vassar is limited, the federal government has proven to be a dangerous opponent of higher education over the past year. President Trump has threatened to cut the funding of nine universities over anti-“woke” nonsense, including allowing transgender athletes in competitive sports, pro-Palestine student activity and DEI policies, per The New York Times. The Trump administration has also orchestrated the detainment and deportations of international students, as well as the revocation of around 8,000 student visas, according to Inside Higher Ed. These actions present an immediate danger to institutional funding and student safety. Many students receiving financial aid, including myself, rely on the federal government to cooperate with Vassar so our families can afford to pay for our education. Many other students are also reliant on the federal government not arbitrarily labelling them as a national security threat. If overblown instances of “woke”-ism reach the ear of the President or his friends and cronies in conservative media, all of these students’ education and careers may end up on the chopping block.
Despite all of this, I understand the anger towards “Whoreship and Prayer.” Not only am I a religion major, but I am religious myself. When I see non-Buddhists poking fun at the Buddha or Buddhist traditions, I feel hurt too. When I heard that this Burlesque show was being produced, I thought it was crossing over much-needed boundaries in how we should treat religions and cultures. If I knew that there was any motion to work with the administration to prevent the show from going on, I would have supported such a movement. However, I am not Christian, and I do not hear the goings on of Christian student circles. I really wish there was a formal platform where students could healthily air their grievances in situations like this…
Oh wait! There is! It is this Opinions Section! As Opinions Editor of The Miscellany News, I was disappointed to see that none of the students who were angry with the Burlesque show and the administration reached out to their own school’s newspaper and instead chose to reach out to a known propaganda machine. Doing so left both our school and the student whistleblower vulnerable to a flurry of undeserved hate, especially on the anonymous platform Fizz in the latter case. In the future, I hope that more campus controversies and disagreements are addressed in these pages, rather than in places where outside forces can use drama to meddle in, disrupt and shame our campus.