(ITHACA) — When Joe Sabia ’01 called on the Ithaca College Republicans to pursue national media criticism of a college in Ithaca, he could have never anticipated what would unfold during the following week.
Harsh
Sabia censured the Ithaca College Republicans (ICRs) in his Apr. 8 Cornell Review column, titled “No Shades of Gray,” for conferring a public apology to the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian Alliance and other student organizations at Ithaca College. The ICRs had earlier publicized a speech with flyers that read, “Feminazis Beware: Your Nuremburg Is Coming.”
The Fox News Channel located Sabia’s column, and Scott Norvell at FoxNews.com shed light on how conservative college students were being subjected to censorship in Ithaca. Only he got the wrong Ithaca college.
Norvell’s Fox News column, called Tongue Tied, reported on Monday that the events Sabia described took place at Cornell. Before Fox could run a correction, The Rush Limbaugh Show picked up the story, and Limbaugh — who claims credit for coining the term ‘feminazi’ — called out Cornell for pressuring its conservatives.
“Democrats can run around Capitol Hill and accuse Republicans of starving children or denying medicine to the elderly. But when some Republican college students at Cornell University put the word ‘Feminazi’ on posters referring to feminists, all hell breaks loose, and they’re forced to apologize,” Limbaugh wrote on his Web site.
Laying the blame with the Fox News Channel, Limbaugh aired a correction to the story two days ago. According to Fox News Online, however, Norvell could not be reached for comment.
Subsequently, the radio talk-show host made sure to underscore one incontrovertible fact about Cornell’s conservatives — who operate a campus publication that declares prominently, “We do not apologize.”
Sides
Limbaugh said, “The guy who called to correct us said that the Cornell University Republicans would never apologize to the left.”
ICR Chair Kyle Clark issued the controversial statement to the Ithaca College community but later characterized the exchange as a misunderstanding. Clark still stands behind the messages used to publicize anti-abortion activist Bay Buchanan, he said.
Regarding the Cornell Republicans’ unapologetic stance, Clark said, “That’s very admirable, and that’s one approach that can be taken.”
Archived article by Matthew Hirsch