UNC Officials Accused of Not Protecting Students or Defending Free Speech After April Fools’ ICE Article, ‘Sorority Girl’ Skit Lead to Death Threats, Campus Uproar
Plus, mainstream media outlets peddle misleading groupthink on Chinese renewable energy
Student journalists and comedy writers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have gotten death threats after an April Fools’ day article and a Saturday Night Live-style video skit—both satirizing issues of race, class, and immigration status—caused a massive uproar on the easily triggered campus. University officials denounced the “completely unacceptable” and “deeply hurtful” satire, and announced an investigation into the video skit, only to backtrack several days later after receiving complaints from national free speech groups, UNC senior Ashley Dowdney reports for the Free Beacon.
The student paper, the Daily Tar Heel, included in its annual April 1 satire issue a spoof report about President Donald Trump replacing the state’s Alcohol Law Enforcement agency, despised by many students on campus, with ICE. The “report” indicated that a federal agent had mistakenly arrested “a white girl who was sporting a suspect dark fake tan.” The satirical video skit—published by the student-run late night show Hill After Hours—featured an entitled white sorority girl touring UNC’s freshman budget housing with her bodyguards, describing the area as a “third-world country” and being condescending to Hispanic students.
UNC senior vice provost for student success James Orr condemned the “racist and insensitive nature” of the material, which he described as “completely unacceptable” and “deeply hurtful.” He also pledged to “investigate” Hill After Hours. The approach clashes with Article 36 of UNC’s 2024 “equality” policy, which requires university officials to remain neutral on “political controversies of the day.”
“Provost Orr’s ‘Statement on Behalf of the University’ certainly appears to violate the UNC system’s commitment to institutional neutrality,” said the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s special counsel for campus advocacy, Robert Shibley, who said the school’s reaction “seems likely to chill freedom of expression at UNC.”
On Friday, UNC’s general counsel’s office reached out to FIRE, four days after Orr’s fiery denunciation, and backtracked, but not before the Daily Tar Heel and Hill After Hours folded like cheap suits, removing the content and issuing multiple groveling apologies. The Daily Tar Heel will now give editors DEI training—administered by UNC’s journalism school—and Hill After Hours told viewers, “Satire is not an excuse for ignorance.”
Read the whole mindbending piece below.
The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal recently published suspiciously similar stories claiming the Iran war had vindicated China’s investments in wind and solar energy. “How’d the New York Times (’War Highlights China’s Renewables Lead‘) and the Wall Street Journal (’An Iran War Winner: China’s Clean Energy‘) wind up with the same bad takes on the same story on the same day?” asks the Free Beacon‘s Ira Stoll. “It’s likely that their editors were both reading the Associated Press, a wire service that drives newsroom agendas by providing a tip sheet in advance disclosing what stories the AP is working on.” Stoll writes:
The AP had its own version of the same story, headlined, “Iran war’s global energy crisis sharpens China’s advantage in clean tech.” Datelined Hong Kong, a China-controlled territory where journalists are imprisoned if they publish articles that the Chinese authorities disapprove of, the AP story begins, “China is poised to benefit from the Iran war as global energy disruptions accelerate a shift away from fossil fuels and toward clean technologies and renewable power, industries that China dominates.”
The gist of the story—that the Iran war somehow demonstrates that China is right about wind and solar energy—is a fantasy, not a fact. Even if you rely on China’s own unreliable data, the International Energy Agency lists coal and coal products as 71 percent of China’s energy production, and solar, wind, and other renewables combined at 5.4 percent.
The AP’s questionable business relationships may explain how the piece was published in the first place. The AP has a “partnership“ with the China News Service, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. The AP’s “climate desk,” meanwhile, is funded by left-wing philanthropies like the Hewlett Foundation, which also happens to give to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. A researcher for the institute, Sam Reynolds, is quoted in the AP piece as saying, “China’s approach to energy sector development and geopolitics has been completely validated by the Iran conflict.”
READ MORE: The Misleading Media Groupthink On China’s Renewable Energy
Additional reading:
The U.S. blockade of Iran went into effect Monday morning, “and there are more than 15 U.S. warships in place to support the operation,” according to the Wall Street Journal, which noted that U.S. naval assets positioned in the region include “an aircraft carrier, multiple guided-missile destroyers, an amphibious assault ship and several other warships.” Those ships are expected to operate just outside the Strait of Hormuz to minimize attacks from Iran, and they “have the ability to launch helicopters that support boarding operations.”
Trump said Iranian ships that “come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE” will be “immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal.”
Disgraced California Democrat Eric Swalwell is resigning from Congress as sexual assault and harassment allegations from former staffers stack up against him. In a truly ridiculous statement, he called the allegations “false” while also apologizing to his family and staff for “mistakes in judgment.”
An overlooked figure in the scandal is Ruben Gallego, the Arizona senator who will live in infamy for, among other things, posing shirtless with Swalwell while riding a camel in the Qatari desert. Gallego, who endorsed Swalwell’s gubernatorial campaign, initially rose to his buddy’s defense. Now, Gallego claims he’s “shocked and upset” to learn of the accusations and regrets sticking up for his friend. Gallego, who served his wife with divorce papers when she was nine months pregnant and then tried to force her to pay his legal bills, now says he had no idea his scumbag friend was leading a “double life.” “An important question everyone should be asking: what did Senator Ruben Gallego know and when did he know it?” journalist Yashar Ali wrote on X.
The Obama bros over at Pod Save America hosted anti-American streamer and Abdul El-Sayed campaign surrogate Hasan Piker, who called Republicans “the biggest terrorists internationally” and expressed support for the actual terrorists of Hamas. “When you say, ‘Hamas is a thousand times better,’ do you actually mean that?” former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau asked. “I do mean it,” Piker replied. His appearance on the podcast came around the same time New York Times columnist and Democratic darling Ezra Klein published a column headlined, “Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy.”
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It was reported today by the Philippines that the Chinese dumped a ton or more of toxic chemicals into the South China Sea. Wow that sounds like real clean tech to me. Sarcasm intended.