Great job by VA State Senate Majority Leder Scott Surovell yesterday at UVA:
- “I’m offended and I”m fed up with what’s going on”
- “Just a few months ago, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice forced out President Ryan…[not] because he failed this university…President Ryan was forced out because he refused to abandon this university’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.”
- “They gave President Ryan a choice that no president should ever have to face – either quit your job or watch your university face financial ruin…And that, folks, is what we call extortion, plain and simple.”
- “President Ryan’s resignation was supposed to satisfy the [Trump] administration…the whole point was to end this [interference]…I used to read my kids a story…if you give a mouse a cookie, what does he want next? He wants a glass of milk. They forced out President Ryan. Well guess, what they’re back…for more.”
- “The lesson we should have learned is that appeasement never satisfies bullies.”
- The Trump “Compact” would “silence faculty members… subject every academic decision to arbitrary federal enforcement with the consequence that the school lose all federal funding…The ‘compact” is riddled with contradictions – go read it – it demands that the university ban belittlement of conservative ideas while simultaneously claiming to protect academic freedom. What in the world does that mean? These things cannot coexist. They are designed to fail. It’s a trap…for all the schools. Begging Trump for permission.”
- “The majority in the General Assembly made our position clear…Trump’s interference would not be tolerated by the Virginia Senate…The mouse came back for milk. We gave him milk, they wanted straws, then napkins, then they wanted to look in the mirror to make sure they didn’t have a milk moustache. It never ends until we say NO! That’s why we made clear that if the…Board of Visitors…decides to sign this silly “Compact” there will be consequences in Richmond…The General Assembly will not tolerate…your taxpayer dollars to subsidize an insitutiion ceding its control to President Trump.”
- “What’s at stake is the sould of the university. Mr. Jefferson founded this school on principles of…intellectual independence…education should be protected from political interferences…truth emerges from rigorous debate and not government mandates. If we agree to what the Feds say, we betray Thomas Jefferson’s principles, what he built…We betray the students who come here to learn HOW to think, not WHAT to think.”
- “The Commonwealth is watching…history is watching right now too.”
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