During the fall semester of 2024, my friend Andy and I hosted a once-weekly public
affairs radio show on the campus station, WHRW. We were fired for being outspoken
white, older, conservative men.

It began when I announced that we had secured a live, on-air interview with University of
Pennsylvania named chair law professor Amy Wax. Professor Wax had just been
stripped of her chaired position and been suspended for one-year at half pay and publicly
reprimanded. Her story was international-level news in academia and the fact that we
had landed her as a guest was phenomenal, or so we thought.

Students run the radio station. Two young girls, the general manager and the public
affairs manager, began demanding of us transcripts of what we would say in our
interview, even though station guidelines clearly tout an open format and minimal
interference. Following demand after demand, which we fulfilled, the girls ultimately
shut down the interview 10-minutes before air, citing “harm to the listeners.”
We filed an official FCC complaint for discrimination and the suppression of speech,
which is currently pending.

On our following show, we had arranged for former University of Pennsylvania trustee
and law school overseer Paul Levy to call in. Because we were ambushed over the Wax
interview, we kept this scheduled call-in to ourselves. Levy resigned from his leadership
position at Penn over the treatment Wax had received and we had a far-ranging very
interesting interview about what had happened. It was the kind of original and interesting
reporting a public affairs show was supposed to produce.

Immediately after that show, the remainder of our shows were abruptly cancelled.
Fast forward to the winter 2025 and spring 2025 semesters. We made no effort to renew
our shows. We aren’t students, we had no other business on campus and we had no
intention of returning to WHRW.

In spite of that reality, the girls began pushing us to avail ourselves to a disciplinary
hearing. When we reminded them that we were gone, didn’t want to return, and have no
relationship with the station or the university, they nevertheless persisted.

Understanding that this “hearing” was going to go on, with or without us, we decided to
present a statement in lieu of appearance, outlined just how unfair and wrong-headed this
whole fiasco was. Quite predictably, we were found guilty of all charges and only
because there is no death-penalty provision in the WHRW Star-Chamber Manual, we live
to fight on.

In the text of the damning documents, we were reminded of our appeal process and
provided a link if we so chose to make that appeal, which we did, surmising that we
might find justice when finally outside of the incestuous radio station hive.

Quite promptly after making the appeal, the Chief Justice of the Judicial Board rejected
our efforts, noting that because we were not students, we had no official standing within
their fiefdom, however, if we could secure the assistance of a student to act on our behalf,
our appeal would live on!

God-Bless the college Republican organization that agreed to push our claim forward.
But just as promptly as the first denial, the second one followed, this time suggesting that
the board had no jurisdiction because this was a management issue. In other words, kick
the can down the road and make sure all feathers stay unruffled, a judicial board
unwilling and maybe unknowing on how to adjudicate, afraid to act.

This is the kind of product our public campuses are producing; autocratic, authoritarian
bullies, not seeking truth and understanding through discussion and debate, but
demanding compliance, enforcing group-think, and rejecting opposing views as they
close their minds to any outside interference. These kids aren’t learning how to think,
they’re validating what to think, without challenge and devoid of a thorough debate that
tends to clarify the issues and expose both the truth and the lie. But for these kids, there
is no point in having the discussion when your mind is already made up and you can
move forward with the knowledge that in their short 20-some years on the planet, they’ve
managed to figure it out, they broke the code, there are no more debates, just their truths
that need to be injected into everyone else, for their own good of course.

Best of luck with that strategy.