On Tuesday, Saint Louis University upheld the Office of Student Responsibility and Community Standards’ (OSRCS) previous decision to sanction the university’s College Republicans chapter for asking the question “What is a Woman?” in a video posted to Instagram. They claimed it violated their Community Standards.
According to a letter from the University Appeal Board (UAB), “we have chosen to uphold the findings and sanctions of this case…”
They declared that this was the “final determination” in the matter and told the recipient “[we] sincerely hope you, and the organization you are representing, have learned something positive from this situation.”
On November 22, the SLU College Republicans appealed the initial guilty decision. The organization contends that they did not engage in inappropriate conduct or “behavior that fails to uphold the University’s mission, values, objectives, and responsibilities; behavior that fails to model good citizenship,” as they are accused of.
President of SLU College Republicans Nicholas Baker told YAF “It’s a sad day for higher education.”
Despite this hiccup, Baker remains optimistic, adding, “…we have the courage, strength, and determination to overcome any obstacles that they may choose to send our way.”
In their final decision, the UAB wrote “The decision of this case was made with a panel of several faculty and staff…,” which doesn’t mean much considering the faculty and staff of the purportedly Catholic university has proven to be poisoned by wokeness.
Last month, YAF reported on more than 250 administrators, professors, faculty, and more who signed onto a “Statement of Solidarity” in which they swore to “affirm transgender and nonbinary students” and criticized the traditional and scientific definition of a woman.
Director of the OSRCS John Janulis was previously involved in the “InSLUsive Language Campaign” which sought to encourage “the SLU community to use inclusive language…” Part of the campaign included distributing “The Genderbread Person” to students to explain “the differences between biological sex, gender identity, and gender expression.”
In a 2015 The University News article highlighting the campaign, Janulis is quoted as saying “We need to move away from trying to ‘figure out how a person identifies’ and simply let people be who they are and who their soul tells them they are.”
“I think that our culture socializes people to think in terms of patterns, which oftentimes includes placing labels on people, putting them into ‘boxes’ and categorizing them,” Janulis added.
According to OSRCS, “…the purpose of the video was not to advance or articulate any particular viewpoint, nor was it to promote civil and thoughtful discourse.” With this finding, the organization was subject to one year of disciplinary warning and is charged with drafting a social media policy for student organizations.
Since the decision has been upheld, the organization will still be subject to these sanctions.
A Catholic institution of higher education is subjecting students to punishment for daring to ask the question “What is a woman?” If we can no longer question the unfounded ideology of wokeness, we find ourselves losing the battle for our future generations. The same faculty and staff who criticized the scientific definition of a woman in the name of empathy made the decision to punish students who were seeking the truth. Despite the setbacks students will undoubtedly face for being brave enough to question leftist students, professors, and administrators, they must continue to fight for the truth.
