College students freak out when biologist explains that men are taller than women

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Consider this case from Portland State. It happened when James Damore came to talk about diversity at his former employer, Google. That alone was going to draw the opposition. Damore, though, wasn’t the one who caused the most disruption. It was a woman, a biologist, who talked about some basic distinctions common in men and women.

Sexual dimorphism, as these differences are collectively known, is easy enough to understand. The well accepted scientific principal is characterized by distinct difference in size or appearance between the sexes, and the more familiar difference between the sexual organs. This is easy enough to see in birds, for example, where the males and females are often completely different colors. In humans, though the fact is capable of inciting violence.

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Dr. Heather Heying, an evolutionary biologist, began talking about some differences between men and women. She even acknowledged that it struck her as odd to have to defend this notion that men and women are different.

As she spoke of differences in height and muscle mass, a few students stood and voiced their protest. Though there were not many, the students caused a scene. One went to the PA system and threw it from the table. The sound for the event was cut as a result of the damage.

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As the protestor was being detained, she threw around the usual rhetoric. “Even the women in there have been brainwashed!” she explains. Others hurled insults at the police, and threw around terms like “fascists” and “Nazis.”

Protest flyers for the event read: “We have to work together to show James Damore and the PSU Freethinkers that they can’t get away with dressing up bigotry and calling it science.”

Portland State, in an attempt to make everyone happy, set up three different alternative events.

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