Comedian and actor Rob Schneider made it clear on Wednesday that he was unimpressed with the state of higher education in the United States, referring to universities in general as a “closed system” that was guarded by “thought police.”
Schneider’s observation came in response to yet another campus protest — this time at Portland State University — during which radical trans rights activists disrupted and shouted down speakers with whom they disagreed.
“Student activists at @Portland_State attempted to disrupt our public conversations today,” philosopher and author Peter Boghossian tweeted. He was on the campus alongside two other speakers for a discussion on whether or not minors were capable of consenting to puberty blockers and cross sex hormone treatments.
“I am genuinely embarrassed for the activists and disappointed that they prevented students with sincere objections from engaging us,” he added.
Student activists at @Portland_State
attempted to disrupt our public conversations today. I am genuinely embarrassed for the activists and disappointed that they prevented students with sincere objections from engaging us. https://t.co/QZHxIMiudj
— Peter Boghossian (@peterboghossian) May 4, 2023
Schneider reacted to Boghossian’s comments, tweeting, “@peterboghossian Universities in America no longer promote learning or allow debate. It’s a closed system of thought run by thought police … Authoritarianism dressed us as tolerance.”
. @peterboghossian Universities in America no longer promote learning or allow debate. It’s a closed system of thought run by thought police…
Authoritarianism dressed us as tolerance. https://t.co/T5V3hgUfLg
— Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider) May 4, 2023
Boghossian knows Schneider’s sentiments all too well — in 2021 he left his post as a professor of philosophy at Portland State University after a decade, saying that his school had “sacrificed ideas for ideology” and that the more he had tried to push back against the tide, the more he was personally attacked.
“I never once believed — nor do I now — that the purpose of instruction was to lead my students to a particular conclusion. Rather, I sought to create the conditions for rigorous thought; to help them gain the tools to hunt and furrow for their own conclusions,” Boghossian wrote in a scathing resignation letter.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
“But brick by brick, the university has made this kind of intellectual exploration impossible. It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division,” he said.
This latest disruption comes on the heels of several others — including one dangerous protest during which former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines was forced to barricade herself in a locked classroom for her own physical safety.
