'Suck it up': Lawmaker wants to cut funding for schools coddling students over Trump

Lawmaker wants to cut funding for schools with safe spaces

An Iowa lawmaker is looking to slash funding for public colleges spending money on grief counseling and other kid-glove treatment for students upset over last week’s presidential election results -- telling snowflakes everywhere: “Suck it up, buttercup.”
Since Donald Trump’s upset victory last Tuesday, colleges across the country have brought in therapy dogs, canceled exams and held “cry-ins” on campus.
But Republican state Rep. Bobby Kaufmann says he will introduce a “suck it up, buttercup” bill in January when the Iowa State Legislature resumes, in a bid to fight back against campus coddling.
The bill would hit taxpayer-funded state universities with a budget cut for double the amount they spend on such election-related activities. Kaufmann emphasized that existing therapy and mental health services are not being targeted.
“I saw schools with rising, skyrocketing tuition costs where they are also finding money and expenditures for things such as cry rooms. I heard reports of rooms where you can play with Play-Doh, where you can color on books and talk about your feelings, and I was hearing reports of some schools that were bringing in ponies to be able get students through the election,” he told "Fox & Friends" on Wednesday.
After receiving hundreds of emails of support from across the country, Kaufmann also has set up a website where supporters can "Adopt a Trump protester" and get a "suck it up, buttercup" hat for $17.76. He says he hopes other states pursue similar legislation.
"I believe I'm the first," he told FoxNews.com, when asked if other lawmakers were following his example. "I wanted to fire a political warning shot."
The kind of creative counseling that concerns him extends well beyond Iowa campuses. Kaufmann isn't the only one worried about the post-election feel-gooderies either.
The University of Michigan law school canceled a “Post-Election Self-Care with Food and Play” event this week after inevitable Internet ridicule. The event offered students the chance to work out their Trump anxiety with “stress-busting self-care activities” including coloring, blowing bubbles, sculpting with Play-Doh and “positive card making.”
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN CANCELS PLAN TO HELP STUDENTS 'COPE' WITH TRUMP
But Kaufmann says that’s a waste of money, and can actually hurt students as it doesn't prepare them for the real world.
“And in life, when your car breaks down, your kids get sick or you have to take a second job to pay your mortgage, you don’t get to go to a cry zone, you don’t get to pet a pony, you have to deal with it,” he said.
However, at least one state university has pushed back against the bill, saying it’s important for students to be able to express themselves about election results
“I think universities are the perfect place to have these types of conversations,” Scott Ketelsen, director of university relations at the University of Northern Iowa, told the Des Moines Register. “It’s where people learn. It’s where they share ideas. I don’t consider it coddling.”
The bill also establishes new criminal penalties for protesters who shut down highways. Kaufmann cited a recent anti-Trump protest that shut down a highway in Iowa City.
“I encourage protest, I encourage dissent. But you don’t have a constitutional right to block the constitutional rights of others,” he told "Fox & Friends."
Some lawmakers in other states have taken the opposite approach. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called on Monday for more disruption in the city, which has seen some of the highest-profile protests since Trump was elected.
“We have to recognize that all over this country, the more disruption that’s caused peacefully … the more it will change the trajectory of things,” he said in a radio interview on Monday.