The writer had the audacity to say things the students didn’t like, you see.

David Hookstead of the College Fix reports.

Students demand conservative-libertarian columnist be fired for ‘racist, unsafe’ views

PETITION: ‘We do not believe students have a protected right to use a student publication … as a platform to proliferate racist stereotypes and misinformation’

A student at Duke University who has penned columns for the Duke Chronicle that favor conservative and libertarian principles is now the target of a student protest demanding his termination as the campus newspaper’s opinion editor in a petition that calls the columnist’s views “racist” and “unsafe.”

Duke student Jonathan Zhao – a rising senior tapped as the new opinion page editor of the Duke Chronicle – has written columns in the past titled “Gay marriage is not a right,” “Equal pay is anti-feminist” and “A farewell to arms control.”

Zhao has also held positions with the Romney for President campaign and the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, according to his LinkedIn page.

While he has often touted positions counter to mainstream politically correct beliefs on campus, the tipping point against Zhao came after he penned a column May 27 titled “The plight of black America” that stated: “The greatest obstacle to the advancement of black Americans isn’t racism or past injustices but rather the black community itself.”

Between that and Zhao’s appointment as opinion page editor, it was all too much for Duke University’s left-leaning students, who savagely smeared Zhao’s reputation in a Change.org petition demanding Chronicle editors fire him. The petition is headlined: “We are demanding the immediate removal of Jonathan Zhao as editor of the Duke Chronicle’s editorial page.”

“[W]e do not believe students have a protected right to use a student publication meant to serve and represent the Duke community as a platform to proliferate racist stereotypes and misinformation about an entire group of people – a group of people to which the writer does not even belong,” stated the petition, written by a group calling themselves “Concerned and Conscious Duke Students.”