“For decades, universities have drifted further and further away from their true purpose. Now they are taking the rest of the world with them,” laments author Heather Mac Donald in her new book, “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.”

And University of California, Berkeley, considered one of the nation’s top public universities — and once the quintessence of intellectual freedom — is leading academia’s decline with a ferocious insistence on identity politics and victimology.

The birthplace of the 1960s free speech movement, ironically, has now morphed into a place of ideological conformity, as demonstrated by a recent petition demanding that student senator Isabella Chow (shown above right) — who is a Christian — step down from her post for abstaining from voting for transgender rights last month due to her religious beliefs.

The Queer Alliance Resource Center (QARK) at the school had asked the student senate to support a bill decrying the Trump administration for considering a legal definition of gender that would conform to a person’s sex at birth, according to reporting from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Chow’s traditional and binary worldview does not align with QARK’s — which is why she’s being derided and scorned by the Berkeley community.

“As a Christian, I personally do believe that certain acts and lifestyles conflict with what is good, right and true,” Chow stated at a meeting last month.

“I believe that God created male and female at the beginning of time, and designed sex for marriage between one man and one woman. For me, to love another person does not mean that I silently concur when, at the bottom of my heart, I do not believe that your choices are right or the best for you as an individual,” she added.

So far, more than 1,000 people have signed the petition against Chow.

She’s a daughter of Malaysian-Cambodian immigrants and a junior at the university who is double majoring in business administration and music.

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“Being transgender and non-binary — being queer in any sense of the word — is not a lifestyle choice. We are trying to draw a solid line where there currently exists none,” reads a portion of the petition.

“How much hate and prejudiced action will we tolerate before we finally decide it’s too much? Normalizing acts of hate — even in the form of a pretty speech and a vote to abstain, and especially when it comes from an elected official whose role is to represent the whole of the UC Berkeley student body — will not be tolerated.”

In other words, Chow is being labeled a hater for daring to hold a different opinion.

Still, the backlash continues.

“No matter how difficult this has been, if I don’t represent the Christian perspective — the minority perspective — there won’t be anyone to represent these views,” she told Fox News.

The Berkeley Political Review (BPR) announced last week it had terminated Chow’s membership “after anti-LGBTQ+ statements Chow made at a senate meeting October 31,” according to The Daily Californian, an independent student-run newspaper covering both the campus of Berkeley and the city itself.

Chow remains resolute.

“No matter how difficult this has been, if I don’t represent the Christian perspective — the minority perspective — there won’t be anyone to represent these views,” she told Fox News.

And check out this video:

Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor.