UC Berkeley Senator Refuses to Condemn Trump Policy, Students Demand Her Removal

Want to know what totalitarianism looks like?

Twenty year old Isabella Chow is a student senator at UC Berkeley who was elected with support from students who (presumably) voted for her because they liked her leadership and ideas.  Recently, she abstained from a vote, which caused an uproar at the university.  Now the students want her gone, as more than one thousand people have signed a petition to have her ousted.

What’s the big deal?

The vote was over whether or not she would denounce President Donald Trump’s legal definition of gender that would require it to match a person’s sex at birth.  According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “The proposal would change the federal Title IX civil rights law and potentially remove its protections from 1.4 million transgender people, according to a New York Times story last month, based on a leaked memo. At UC Berkeley, the students’ resolution also urged the university to step up support of ‘transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming students’ and the campus groups that help them.”

Let’s take a moment and clarify.   The Trump administration was not waiting with bated breath to find out what UC Berkeley’s student government body thought on the matter.  This vote was virtue signaling, pure and simple. This vote was 100% posturing.

The San Francisco Chronicle has the details on what happened after Chow abstained.

Hundreds packed a Senate meeting Wednesday night to insist that she go. On social media, students labeled her a “horrible person” and a “mental imbecile.” Her campus political party severed ties with her. And the Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s storied student newspaper, ran an editorial critical of her statements and refused to publish her written defense.

But twenty year old Isabella Chow abstained didn’t change.  She read a statement, in which she denounced discrimination, bigotry, and stereotypes.  First, she described the LGBT+ community as legitimate and loved.  “That said,” she said she couldn’t vote for the bill because it violates her beliefs.

Image Credit: Charlie Nguyen on Flickr

Hat Tip: San Francisco Chronicle