The University of Michigan canceled American Sniper after receiving a petition from a group of Muslim students who opposed the movie. Rachel Jankowski, a Muslim student, started a petition to get the movie back on campus and got over 300 signatures.
00:00:46.000Alright so every Friday night the University of Michigan hosts UMICS which is a time for students to be able to come out it's an alternative to going out and drinking on campus.
00:00:58.000Yeah, it's a time they have events where they host movies, they'll do open buffets, anything for students.
00:01:05.000And so this particular Friday, they were going to do American Sniper as the movie.
00:01:09.000Unfortunately, there were a group of students who started a petition or a letter on Tuesday, and they reached out to the Center for Campus Involvement at the University of Michigan.
00:01:17.000And the Center for Campus Involvement is the group that puts on this event.
00:01:21.000And they said that they were going to be offended by the movie because Chris Kyle is a racist and because the movie perpetuates negative and misleading seriousness.
00:01:30.000Did they actually say he was a racist?
00:01:32.000Yes, they did in their letter and they said he was a mass murderer.
00:01:35.000And so the university, I think within 24 hours of receiving the letter, canceled the movie.
00:01:41.000And they said that because people were going to be offended and disturbed by it, that they were going to not show it.
00:01:47.000And instead they were going to show Paddington Bear.
00:01:51.000Which, by the way, nothing against Paddington Bear, but I think he hates America.
00:01:57.000I thought it was actually a pretty funny move on the part of the University of Michigan.
00:02:00.000We couldn't handle the emotions of American snipers, so instead we're going to go with Paddington Bear, a PG movie.
00:02:05.000So, like a number of people, I was pretty upset when I heard about it, and I wanted to turn that anger into Turn it into action.
00:02:14.000So use that passion for actually something good.
00:02:16.000So I started a petition and I went into the Center for Campus Involvement and I asked them if they would reinstate the movie and they said they would not.
00:02:23.000And I told them that I'd be back later and I'd have at least 300 signatures because that was what was on the original letter from this group who was opposed to the movie.
00:02:31.000Now, this group who was opposed to the movie, was it a Muslim group or was it led by...
00:02:37.000It was led by the Muslim Students' Association and a number of Muslims who signed the movie.
00:03:09.000Groups like that, terrorist groups, and denounce them and say that these groups are actually spinning their religion and making it into something that it's not.
00:03:17.000And instead they're denouncing people like American soldiers like Chris Kyle who have fought for their right to even be able to petition the student government and to petition the Center for Campus Involvement.
00:03:27.000And it's pretty scary when you think about it.
00:04:05.000So we started the petition, a group of students, around, I think, 10 in the morning.
00:04:09.000We had 300 signatures within the first few hours.
00:04:12.000We got up to almost 600 signatures, and that was by the time that Coach Harbaugh came out.
00:04:17.000And said that he would be showing American Sniper to the football team, and he's proud to be an American, and he's proud of Chris Kyle, and if you don't like it, then so be it.
00:04:25.000And I think at that point, we actually never reached out to him.
00:04:27.000He took it upon himself to make a statement on this issue.
00:04:31.000And at that point, I think that's when the university realized they really screwed up.
00:04:35.000And I was actually pretty impressed with the university, because they came out and admitted that they made a mistake.
00:04:40.000They apologized for it, and they reinstated the movie, so I was pretty happy with that.
00:05:56.000So this is my sixth year at the university.
00:05:59.000I've been pretty active in politics since I was here.
00:06:01.000I was the college Republican president a couple years ago.
00:06:04.000I've been involved with Young Americans for Freedom for that amount of time as well.
00:06:08.000And so it's difficult, I'm not going to lie, but it's wonderful when we have the university community and the alumni community, who is just astronomical in size, and they come out and they support groups like us.
00:06:19.000The outpoint of support that the alumni community have given us, especially during this petition, has just been unbelievable.
00:06:28.000And so when we have all these alumni coming in, calling the university, telling them they're not going to donate another dime because they cannot believe their alma mater is doing this kind of stuff, it's been amazing.
00:06:38.000But it's generally probably more alumni than professors.
00:07:16.000In law school, it's a lot different in terms of the ability to speak out.
00:07:20.000But in undergrad, I think it's pretty common at the University of Michigan and at other public universities – For students not to be able to say what they want to say.
00:07:28.000For instance, I'm sure you've heard this story about Professor and Dean Susan Douglas.
00:07:33.000She wrote the I Hate Republicans column.
00:07:38.000And so I think it's hard for kids to be able to speak out in a class like that or express anything that might be out of line with her opinion because they're so worried about what's going to happen with their grades.
00:07:51.000And it's really unfortunate that People have been stifled.
00:07:54.000They're not allowed to speak out in an academic setting where you're supposed to be hearing differences of opinion.
00:07:59.000You're supposed to be educating yourself on these issues, but you can't actually get both sides of the story, and it's extremely unfortunate.
00:08:05.000Rachel Jankowski was born a poor black woman.
00:08:07.000We will be back on Louder with Crowder after this break, which Fun Dip is not even ready for, because we want her to be able to wrap this up in a nice bow for us, and we'll be seeing you out there tonight at the showing.
00:08:17.000Rachel Jankowski, Louder with Crowder.
00:09:08.000We actually had one guy last video, we did the free speech video, tried to complain that he was going to get it removed from YouTube.
00:09:16.000What's funny is it was in the free speech video, and it was the guy who was actually reasonable, who was like, I don't think these kids do their research, and they don't know what they're talking about, and these words don't seem offensive to me.
00:09:26.000Obviously, we edit all videos, but we don't edit people who are conservative to look liberal or liberal to look conservative.
00:09:32.000And he was like, I'm going to have my lawyer on retainer.
00:09:35.000And we were like, this was a public location.
00:10:42.000But I actually just think it was the university having a good time, just saying, hey, look, if you can't handle it, we'll just give you this PG movie, family fun entertainment, go for it.
00:10:50.000So you think it was a screw you from the university?
00:11:22.000When I speak at Young America's Foundation, which is where you do work with them?
00:11:27.000Yeah, so I used to intern for Young America's Foundation, and now I'm an advisor to the Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Michigan.
00:11:52.000And so they feel like they have free reign to do whatever they want.
00:11:55.000And the university tends to kowtow to them.
00:11:57.000And it's pretty unfortunate because that's when freedom of speech is stifled.
00:12:02.000So when groups like this go out and they say that this video shouldn't be shown because it might be offensive, that's when it's pretty alarming.
00:12:09.000And when President Schlissel, the new president at the University of Michigan, came in during his inauguration, he had talked about this.
00:12:15.000He talked about how he wanted openness of dialogue.
00:12:18.000He wanted people to actually see the other side of things because it might actually instead of offending people, it might actually start a dialogue.
00:12:26.000And so I was really excited when he came in as president.
00:12:29.000And so it's kind of been disappointing to see so many of these stories come out lately that seem to stifle freedom of speech, freedom of expression.
00:12:36.000And so it was really great that the university came out and actually backtracked on this one.
00:12:41.000I always say this, and you can correct me if I'm wrong.
00:12:43.000I know it was true for me, again, being raised in a socialist province.
00:12:46.000Do you feel like conservatives, because they're constantly swimming upstream and fighting, put it this way, it's really easy to be a liberal in college, right?
00:12:53.000It's just the default position of your professors, everything you watch, all the music you listen to.
00:12:57.000Do you feel like conservatives, and I know there's going to be some bias here, do you just feel like they're more informed on the actual issues than liberals on campus?
00:13:14.000So it's very easy to kind of just fall in with the rest of the crowd, hear something and just kind of take it as truth, which is what was so scary about this petition.
00:13:21.000Going back, this letter that they sent said Chris Coll is a racist and he's a mass murderer.
00:13:27.000And if you take that as true and you do not denounce it at all, it just seems like that's the truth.
00:14:12.000Chris Kyle liked to tell stories, you know, what Marines or Navy SEALs don't, but I've never seen anything from him that was outwardly racist.
00:14:20.000I mean, you know, there are plenty of, obviously, black people in his divisions, platoons.
00:14:24.000I don't know the exact terminology, but...
00:14:28.000You have the right to your own opinion.
00:14:29.000You don't have the right to your own facts.
00:14:30.000And so if you want to say that, you can.
00:14:33.000But the university should not be accepting that as truth.
00:15:02.000And all students would assume, right, by proxy, well, if the university endorses this letter and statement, it must be true.
00:15:08.000And then they go on the rest of their life thinking Chris Kyle's a racist.
00:15:10.000Yeah, it's not that they necessarily endorsed it.
00:15:11.000It's that they just never did anything to speak out against it.
00:15:15.000Or that they never said, we're not accepting this letter as truth, but we're going to cancel the movie for whatever reason that they wanted to.
00:15:23.000And what really concerns me even more is that There are an even smaller minority on this campus, and it's the veterans.
00:15:29.000And to sit there and kind of not say anything, it makes them feel as if they're unwelcome on this campus.
00:15:36.000We had actually a vet go in and speak to the university about it, and they actually said they had never even thought about that opinion.
00:15:42.000And that's what really bothered me, because I'm like, these people went and fought for this country for your right to speak, for your right to show this movie, and you don't even think about their opinion, how it might affect them.
00:15:52.000And, I mean, they need to be honored, and it's really unfortunate that it happened.
00:15:57.000And what's more unfortunate is, I mean, I don't want to say more, they're equally unfortunate, is that that really is, we use the word narrative and it's often overused in politics.
00:16:05.000But that narrative is allowed to be set if the university doesn't even so much as say, hey, we'll acknowledge your request to not play the film, but to call him a racist is inaccurate.
00:16:19.000And like you said, you can only have so much of that day in and day out on a campus.
00:16:23.000Where that happens, where all liberals, all professors are liberals and it can affect your grades, where every single protest is liberal, where every single film and obviously the media and entertainment industry is liberal before you just start taking that as default.
00:16:37.000There really isn't another voice at the table.
00:16:40.000And if you look at the American public, how successful American Sniper was.
00:16:44.000I mean, there's a huge divide, not only between politicians, but it seems like academia and average America.
00:16:51.000And most of these Americans, you know, they've gone to college, but they've moved on, they've become conservative.
00:16:55.000Do you notice, like, let's say when you go back home, and we don't have a lot of time, but you go back home to your family, that it's like there's school life, and this is the opinion, and then there's...
00:17:06.000I think Ann Arbor is a little bubble, and the University of Michigan is a little bubble.
00:17:09.000And when these students go out into the real world, they're going to be completely shocked.
00:17:13.000I don't think they're going to be able to handle jobs in their life, because if they're so shaken up about a movie that they were not even required to see, if they didn't like it, they didn't have to go.
00:17:22.000If they're that bothered by it, how on earth are they going to be able to cope in the real world?
00:17:28.000It's scary the university is trying to coddle these children until they're, what, 22 years old and they graduate and then throw them out in the real world?
00:18:09.000Not the kind of exposing themselves Fundip does on the subway.
00:18:11.000If we're on a campus that preaches diversity, then students should actually be exposed to diverse ideas.
00:18:18.000That's where groups like Young Americans for Freedom come in.
00:18:20.000They bring in speakers like you, Stephen Crowder, or they can bring in...
00:18:23.000The alternative viewpoint so that students can actually be exposed to something that's not what they hear every day in class.
00:18:30.000And so I think it's going to be hard for people to go out and actually do something on their own, but we're glad that we have groups like this that alumni will support those groups and we ask that you Absolutely.
00:18:41.000And we talked about that in the video.
00:18:42.000On campus, they want all different kinds of diversity, except for that of intellectual diversity.
00:18:47.000Rachel Jankowski, we will see you later this evening.