A conservative student who ran unopposed for a student government role at Syracuse University was surprised to learn that he lost his election, despite not having any competition.
According to a report in the campus paper, John Parker, a senior who was nominated to run for the Student Association’s Supreme Court, “wasn’t elected after receiving backlash from other SA members due to an opinion column he previously wrote for the Daily Orange about drag shows oversexualizing Syracuse’s campus.”
In the “problematic” opinion piece, Parker made common sense observations about the proliferation of obscenity in the classroom and around campus.
“From seminars like Kink 101 to school-sanctioned extracurriculars like the recent drag shows, it seems like everything has been sexualized at Syracuse University,” he wrote.
According to the Syracuse website, “Kink 101” is an annual seminar sponsored by the university where students can learn about “wax play and flogging” from a professional “kink educator.”
Shortly after the piece was published, the Daily Orange issued an apology for allowing Parker’s so-called “hateful” opinions to appear in its publication.
Parker was not allowed to sit in on the student government’s deliberations regarding the decision to ban him from joining, but told the New Guard that his odds were looking good until “a couple of people brought up the article he wrote while he was a freshman.”
Thankfully, Parker plans to continue boldly standing up for his values. In order to ensure that conservative beliefs are heard on campus, he’s working with Young America’s Foundation to bring in a speaker later this month.
