Cruz rips student protesters at alma mater

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) blasted the “pampered teenagers” at universities he said have an obsession with political correctness, singling out protesters at his alma mater of Princeton University who want to remove tributes to former president Woodrow Wilson for being a racist.

“There are many on the left who I think are weakening this country,” Cruz said on comedian Adam Carolla’s podcast in a recording posted Thursday.

“So you talked about, for example, universities. You see at universities, these essentially pampered teenagers, many of them from very wealthy homes, who complain that they don’t want to hear anything that they disagree with, that it is a micro-aggression. And it is the most bizarre and anti-academic notion you can have.”

There have been several high-profile examples of unrest and protests on college campuses across the country in recent months, most notably at Yale University, where a faculty member resigned after backlash over an email that said students should be allowed to wear potentially offensive Halloween costumes if they want to.

{mosads}And at Cruz’s alma mater, Princeton, student protesters have sought to rid the campus of mentions of Wilson, who historians say was an unapologetic racist.

The school’s Public and International Affairs wing and a residential building bear Wilson’s name.

Cruz called Princeton “a remarkable institution,” but chided the students for seeking to scrub Wilson’s name from the record books.

“Was Woodrow Wilson an unabashed racist? Yes,” Cruz said. “Should we talk about that, should we condemn it? Yes. But we shouldn’t be involved in this bizarre process of erasing our history because it offends our ears. This is something the media pushes, but I think the American people are fed up with it.”

Cruz said it was ironic that liberal students would target a “leftist, big government” president in their efforts to be politically correct.

“There’s an irony … in that Woodrow Wilson was a big-government progressive Democrat,” Cruz said. “I am not a fan of Woodrow Wilson. I think he did a lot of damage to this country. And it is more than ironic that the protesters are going after leftist big-government liberals.”