College Republicans Claim Inadequate Response to Black Lives Matter Vandalism

Black Lives Matter, good; Blue Lives Matter, bad.

That is the view of some black students at Dartmouth College, who last week tore down a display by the Dartmouth College Republicans honoring police officers and firefighters who have died in the line of duty. The organization had received permission from the school to put up the display in conjunction with National Police Week, which runs through Saturday.

Black Lives Matter activists labeled the display on a bulletin board in Collis Atrium as “white supremacist,” took it down and then guarded the area so that it could not be reconstituted. Josh Kauderer, a College Republicans member who helped put up the display, said that the student center administrator told the group on Saturday to come back in an hour to put it back up.

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The school’s president, the college dean, the provost and vice provost sent an email to the campus Sunday morning calling the actions against the police memorial an “unacceptable violation of freedom of expression on our campus” and vowing to discipline any student involved in the actions.

Kauderer said that, to his knowledge, no one has been punished.

“Especially when it’s the left doing these things, they never try to find out who is responsible,” he said.

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Kauderer contrasted the administration’s response–an email 48 hours after the fact–with much more aggressive action it took in November when someone took down part of a Black Lives Matter billboard on campus. The president almost immediately sent a strongly worded email condemning the act, he said.

The Black Lives Matter students who took actions against the police memorial particularly objected to the use of the slogan “Blue Lives Matter” on the display. {snip}

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