Ed Morrisey at our sister site Hot Air did a great podcast interview with Skylar Culbertson, a student at William and Mary College who has been harassed and attacked for her pro-life stance on the campus, and for debunking the gender ideology nonsense by stating publicly that there are only two genders.
Morrisey said of his conversation with Skylar:
Skylar joined me on The Ed Morrissey Show podcast to discuss the issue and the lack of response from William and Mary’s administration, plus much more. After all, as Skylar points out, the violence in response to pro-life and conservative speech isn’t limited to her campus alone.
“We saw what happened at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond,” Skylar says. “Kristen [Hawkins] was harassed. And then again with Riley Gaines in San Francisco, so yeah, it’s happening all across the country. And it’s crazy that people feel that they need to resort to violence to get across their social goals.”
That’s not to say that the response is any better when guest speakers are not involved. “Last semester, my club did a tabling event and we actually had one student throw a cup of urine on my club members,” Skylar continues. “So thankfully, after the Virginia Attorney General got involved, that student was arrested,” but most of the threats and violence don’t get any response from the school itself.
Skylar wrote about this in detail for the publication The College Fix. This website is a featured publication of Conk! News out of Minnesota, where I am a regular contributor to their podcasts. So, I reached out to The College Fix editor Jennifer Kabbany to get her perspective on Skylar’s experience and discover whether the reporting on these incidents is based on the actual frequency of events, or whether it is an echo chamber that tends to happen with certain subject matters in all media circles.
In an email interview, Kabbany affirmed that this is a real issue on college campuses, and Skylar’s story is all too common.
“It is not hyperbole,” Kabbany said. “The College Fix has published more than 100 stories over the years of conservative students being threatened, attacked, harassed, doxed, defamed and slandered. Their events are targeted, their requests for funding denied, their speakers shouted down.”
The term “brave” has all but lost its meaning because we throw it around cavalierly from the singer Lizzo baring her ample backside, to fauxnalist Taylor Lorenz crying on camera over her own self-inflicted wounds. Skylar taking the stance she has over the past year is truly brave. The escalated attacks on conservatives in the college space, like the attack on Riley Gaines by a trans activist at San Francisco State University, have had a chilling effect on conservative speech. These threats and attacks also require enhanced security, and school administrators and campus police have refused to step up to protect the rights of conservatives to freely air their viewpoints without retaliation. Kabbany confirmed this as well.
“Survey after survey shows a majority of conservative students are afraid to even voice their opinions in the classroom or on the quad for fear of their peers’ and professors’ virulent reactions.”
I had the opportunity to interview Skylar on Friday (video below), and despite the vitriol being directed her way, she refuses to back down and continues to be vocal.
“Students are resorting to violence and willing to go to extreme measures is really what we’re seeing,” she told Morrisey. “My DMs are always full with people saying the most insane things to me.”
“We should be able to have simple conversations, we should be able to talk like normal people.”
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I was fascinated by the fact that aside from Skylar’s Christianity and her pro-life leanings, she started out pretty middle-of-the-road liberal when she transferred to William and Mary College. In our interview, I discovered that it was not just the forced indoctrination of transgender ideology that spurred her to activism, but the pro-abortion furor over the Dobbs draft leak last May.
“I transferred in as a junior to William and Mary, and I noticed that the pro-abortion Club called “Vox” on campus was very active and there was no pro-life presence whatsoever,” she said.
“At the time, I was just personally pro-life. I was never outspoken about my beliefs at all, but I just hated that, you know, women were being told that abortion is the only option and that they need abortion to be successful, because that’s just not the case at all.”
The lopsided perspective of the Left—theirs is the only true way.
“So, I I really prayed about it. I’m a Christian, and I was like, you know what God, is this what you want me to do you? Do you want me to take over the club? So, I started with [the pro-life club] Tribe for Life, and really the rest is history from there. But yes, Whenever the Supreme Court decision leaked, that was my first time being very outspoken about my beliefs. The pro-abortion club Vox was having a protest here in colonial Williamsburg, and I went alone because nobody wanted to join me. And that was like, I feel like once you put yourself out there for one time, that kind of just changes everything.”
Skylar said she had tourists visiting colonial Williamsburg who actually joined her to protest!
“That was really the first time that I had experienced God really, and felt that he spoke to me that day. Ever since then, I’ve been outspokenly for life.”
Skylar will be graduating next month, but she spoke about how her courageous stance has affected change and encouraged incoming conservative students to be bold in their speech and brave in their activism. Skylar also kept the pressure on the school administration at William and Mary to do their due diligence to uphold the rights of her and her club’s speech and take strides to protect it, as their code of conduct and charter states. This pressure is necessary in order to see change happen on the college landscape, as The College Fix editor Jennifer Kabbany affirms.
“It is up to students, parents, lawmakers, watchdogs, advocacy groups and others to work toward change. But our reporting helps them paint a picture of why change is so badly needed.”
My 20-minute interview with Skylar Culbertson is below.
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