On January 10, 2025, City on a Hill Press, the campus newspaper of the University of California at Santa Cruz, published the most disgusting article I have ever read in a campus newspaper, and I've read more than my share. (The article only now has come to my attention from reading the online edition of the paper.) The article in question appears to excuse, if not glorify, the murder of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Health Care in New York City on December 4, 2024. The alleged assassin, Luigi Mangione, has yet to go to trial, but immediately after the murder, voices in different parts of the country actually celebrated the killing.
Here is the op-ed in question from City on a Hill Press.
Whatever one thinks of insurance companies, or United Health Care, in particular, to defend the murder of a man who was shot in the back on a sidewalk simply for being the CEO of an insurance company, is ugly and disgusting. Even more, it illustrates the alarming level to which our universities have sunk. Years ago, I christened UC Santa Cruz as "America's Wackiest University" for a myriad of reasons. That label seems trivial now in light of this op-ed. This is the kind of writing that brings back memories of Italy's Red Brigades or Germany's Red Army Faction in defending their assassinations of innocent people.
The language is, of course, "revolutionary" in its jargon. At the very least, it implies that this country is in need of a violent revolution. Note that Thompson, the victim, is referred to as a "dastardly individual" and a "villain". I would bet the farm that the writers of this article have no personal knowledge of Thompson's private life or personal characteristics, nor do I. To them, he is a villain simply because he was an insurance company CEO. This is the language of Jacobins and others who sent people to their deaths just because they belonged to a particular social, economic, or professional class.
But should this be so surprising? Far too many of our universities, and UCSC is one of them, are in the business not of educating our youth, but rather indoctrinating them. Far too many professors are teaching their classes that America is such an evil country that only a violent revolution will cure its ills. They may parse their words or imply the message they want to get across. Others are not so coy, secure in the knowledge that their words will be protected under the cover of academic freedom. Look how professors get away with anti-Semitic speech on our campuses today. (This week, it was announced that the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into anti-Semitism in the entire University of California system.)
As I noted above, campus newspapers are almost always left-wing in their bent, which is their right, but it is rare that they will feature conservative voices. There are some that are worse than others. The Daily Californian (UC Berkeley), for example, has often featured regular op-eds by student journalists on its staff describing their sexual experiences in vivid detail. But this op-ed, which excuses the cold-blooded, premeditated murder of Brian Thompson, for no other reason than he was part of a class of people despised by the op-ed writers, is absolutely the worst I have ever read. Our universities are in serious need of reform, not to bring about conservative uniformity in place of liberal uniformity, but rather to bring about a return to common decency. As always, I have no wish to cause harm to student journalists who hopefully, will rethink their attitudes a few years down the road when they are older and more mature. The real blame goes to the professors and radicals in our universities who have led them astray.
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