Wheaton College Smears Black Pro-Life Speaker for Talk on Race and Abortion

By Ryan Scott Bomberger, Radiance Foundation
National Right to Life

For Christ and His Kingdom. That’s the motto featured prominently throughout Wheaton College. But what happens when it’s not about Christ or His Kingdom?

I found that out recently after being invited by Wheaton College Republicans to speak on something I’m deeply familiar with—abortion and race. As someone conceived in rape yet adopted and loved into a multiracial family of 15, I have a rather unique take on this. I love actual diversity. As a biracial individual, it’s literally in my blood.

I presented a multimedia talk entitled: “Black Lives Matter In and Out of the Womb” (see video) which provided a perspective that is rarely heard. I wanted to compel students to critically think.

Instead, some wanted to silence the message and smear the messenger.

The Student Government Association (SGA), reportedly with the help of two staff members (Peter Hansen and Crystal Cartwright) of the Office of Student Activities, sent out a dishonest, campus-wide email denouncing me and the hope-filled, fact-based, Biblically-sound presentation. Signed by student leaders Lauren Rowley (Student Body President), Tyler Waaler (Student Body Vice President) and Sammie Shields (EVP of Community Diversity), the letter claimed that my comments “made many students, staff and faculty of color feel unheard, underrepresented and unsafe on our campus.”

Of course, they didn’t identify me as a “person of color” (isn’t everyone a color?). In my emailed response to SGA and administration leaders, I reminded them that my presentation was about those who are always unheard, always underrepresented and actually unsafe—the unborn.

But let this sink in. Sharing a different perspective (aka speaking truth) made “many” feel “unsafe”. Wheaton, are you teaching students to fear or to think?

Only one of those five people involved in this letter of denouncement even attended the event (Sammie Shields). The presentation was 50 minutes, followed by nearly an hour of Q&A and discussion. How was anyone “unheard” or “underrepresented”?

I asked Philip Ziesemer, the Founder of the College Republicans, his reaction to SGA’s attack. 

“I’m disappointed by the school’s response because I do not believe Wheaton College wants to restrict students from taking part in open dialogue…I believe free speech is threatened when someone with a different point of view is accused—in print—of making students feel ‘unsafe’ and ‘underrepresented.’ I wish the school would have responded by encouraging students to think critically, discuss the message from both sides, and challenge themselves on the content presented.”

Sadly, it was clear that even on an evangelical Christian campus, truth is anathema to those who deify “diversity”. In a presentation on what Jesse Jackson once called “black genocide”, those who prefer activism over factivism chose to demonize and distort. 

The talk focused on the hypocrisy of the #BlackLivesMatter movement’s leadership and its announced solidarity with the leading killer in the black community—Planned Parenthood—where 247 black lives are killed by the abortion giant every single day. I pointed out several disturbing policy platform positions (see www.M4BL.net) that are, inarguably, hostile to Christianity.

I refuse to bow to groupthink. And that never goes over well with those who think “diversity” means ideological conformity.

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