After hanging a Thin Blue Line flag on his door, a university professor received orders from his students to remove the offensive banner. Unfortunately for them, his response wasn’t what they expected.
As a professor of engineering and policy at the University of Southern California, James Moore is constantly studying statistics. Naturally, one of the statistical subjects that have garnered the most controversy is that of police shootings involving racial minorities.
Since numerous college campuses are saturated with anti-police propaganda, creating a singular viewpoint, Moore felt it was his responsibility to push back against this unchallenged narrative. As such, students arrived one morning to find a simple but clear message draped across their professor’s door.
Moore had hung a large Thin Blue Line flag, also known as a Blue Lives Matter flag, on his office door. Almost immediately, Moore faced demands to remove the flag. His response: he won’t even consider taking it down because he wants students to realize that there are other views outside of their progressive bubble and that they actually hold the minority viewpoint outside of academia.
“I wanted to communicate to progressively-oriented students that there’s a competing point of view,” Moore told “Fox & Friends” during an interview. “They live in something of a progressive bubble on a college campus… I wanted to communicate to conservative students, of which there are many, that in fact they’re entitled to their voice, that the messages they hear are really not representative of society at large.”
As a statistician, Moore explained that he hung the flag to counter the belief that black people have a higher risk of police violence. In fact, he wants to communicate the fact that most black people do not want the police defunded and that they benefit the most from police presence.
“I think it’s a lie,” he said. “Black lives benefit rather strongly, disproportionately from the activities of police… Black lives are at greatest risk from reduced police service. If all lives matter and Black lives in particular matter, then we need to make sure that they’re secure.”
Of course, it was only a matter of time before outraged students took their grievances to the university staff. Graduate student Shai Porat filed a complaint with the dean of the Viterbi School of Engineering and USC’s Office of Equity. However, he was shocked when both offices replied that Moore has the right to hang the symbol on his office door.
“The university does not have a policy that limits the display of materials in spaces like this, though we are looking at whether it is needed,” the university said in a statement to the Daily Trojan. “As part of the university’s commitment to academic freedom, a faculty member can express his or her individual beliefs and viewpoints on a wide variety of topics – even controversial issues – but they do not speak on behalf of a school or the broader university.”
Resolved to censor Moore, Porat and graduate student Maricarmen Pachicano called on the university to change its policy to include control of faculty members’ office spaces.
“[Moore] had to know this would be an inappropriate thing to have, especially with USC’s diversity initiatives,” Porat said.
“I want them to take it down, and I want them to do something about Professor Moore because this is not the first controversial thing he’s done,” Pachicano said.
True to form, progressive students are attempting to paint Moore as a racist and a supporter of white supremacy. In fact, they are ignoring the fact that most minorities want a stronger police presence to combat crime and that a large percentage of those in law enforcement are minorities themselves.
Despite students’ demands, the university cannot fully censor Moore, and he knows it. As such, he feels it is important to show students that theirs isn’t the only opinion that exists.
“I wanted to remind students that there are multiple points of view present on this campus, because we are becoming fairly homogenous in respect to ideas,” Moore said.
James Moore has seen the fascism that shuts down other viewpoints in academia, and he understands the harm it does to students by keeping them sheltered from the free exchange of ideas. Thankfully, he is introducing his students to other opinions so that they aren’t emotionally incapable of hearing other views.
Until the university caves to the cry of the mob, Moore will continue to push back against academia’s intolerance of diversity of thought. His response proves that there are still academics who aren’t trying to indoctrinate students with just one way of thinking.
