A look at how the novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ played out on college campuses in 2020

A look at how the novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ played out on college campuses in 2020

"George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four describes a dystopian future dominated by a totalitarian government that uses surveillance, language, and propaganda to subdue its citizens.

Leftists on American college campuses took its precepts for a test drive in 2020.

While George Orwell's famous dystopian novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is a work of fiction, it is widely regarded as a warning against totalitarian regimes, especially those that seek to quash freedom of expression. 

This year, some of the most prevalent themes in the novel presented themselves on America's college campuses.

• Thought Police

...The student newspaper at Princeton University published an editorial in November encouraging the university’s administration to “act against racist speech.”

“For too long, white people, and particularly white men, in this country and on this campus, have held the power to decide what constitutes acceptable speech and action,” reads the piece. “They have consistently deemed racist, and particularly anti-Black, fictions acceptable.”...

• Ministry of Truth

...A student newspaper at Johns Hopkins University removed an article featuring a university study claiming that COVID-19 did not significantly increase the United States death rate.

Using publicly available data from the CDC, a university employee found that “the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19.” She also noted that “the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same” between 2019 and 2020.

Regardless, the newspaper pulled down the article after it had allegedly been used to spread “dangerous inaccuracies” online.

• 2 + 2 = 5

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, the citizens of Oceania were forced to accept irrational ideas — “doublethink” — in order to signal their submission to the Party. "...

...In August, professors at Brooklyn College and other universities asserted that “2 + 2 = 5” on social media. Many alleged that Western concepts of mathematics are rooted in racism and “white supremacist patriarchy.” Another professor said that the United States “colonizes” math...Much here, read all!