Jewish World Review May 10, 1999 /24 Iyar 5759
Don Feder
Conservatives excluded from academic diversity
(JWR) ---- (http://www.jewishworldreview.com)
WELLESLEY COLLEGE and Brandeis University are almost neighbors. Both are
well-regarded, expensive and prime examples of the academic inclination to
crush the larynx of dissenting voices.
Attorney Harvey Silverglate, co-author of "The Shadow University: The
Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses," decries what he describes as
"stealth censorship" on campus.
In place of speech codes (no longer in vogue, due to negative publicity),
there are rules against "harassment," which amount to the same thing --
punishment for expressing unpopular ideas.
Instead of outright censorship, the establishment snubs out conservative
events and denies funding to alternative publications.
The voice of sanity at Wellesley, Women for Freedom, arranges debates and
speakers on issues like racial preferences and academic freedom, presenting
ideas students are unlikely to encounter in any other campus forum.
The group has sponsored Dinesh D'Souza (author of "Illiberal Education"),
Christina Hoff Sommers ("Who Stole Feminism?") and scholar Harvey Mansfield.
The Wellesley News, supported by student activity fees, not only refuses to
list the group's events in its calendar section and cover its programs, but
won't even accept paid advertisements.
Larisa Vanov, the Wellesley alumnus who started the organization, reports
the publicity blackout has had the desired effect.
In terms of reaching the student body, the only alternative to an ad in the
official campus paper is flyers, but these are usually torn down within
minutes of being posted.
When Horace Cooper, press secretary to House Majority Leader Dick Armey,
spoke to Ivy Leaguers for Freedom (affiliated with Vanov's group) at
Princeton, he drew an audience of 70. Over 140 attended his debate at Boston
University. At Wellesley, the minority critic of quotas addressed four
students.
The News won't admit rejecting the ads. Instead, when the group wants to
advertise, there's never space available -- though there's plenty for
in-house advertising. Stealth censorship.
The administration is terribly blase about all of this. Officials say they
can't interfere with a student publication, even one that bears the school's
name and receives $20,000 in annual subsidies while violating its rules. If
this happened to a feminist or gay group, be sure administrators would read
the riot act.
If conservatives can't get coverage in the campus paper, perhaps they
should start their own? At Brandeis they did -- and experienced another
aspect of academic repression.
Established two years ago, Freedom magazine is irreverent and
iconoclastic -- everything the left can't stand when it's on the receiving
end.
Last October, the conservative periodical ran articles criticizing the
student senate for extravagance and self-interest. Thomas Jefferson said
that if forced to choose between having a government and having a free
press, he'd pick the latter. Brandeis prefers a complacent student
government.
Following the expose, one senator destroyed copies of the publication while
another threatened editor Bryan Rudnick with physical violence. The same
loose canon alleged that Freedom is, among other stuff, anti-Semitic -- a
neat trick, in that Rudnick and several staffers are Jewish.
After cutting funding by 50 percent last semester as a punishment for
dissent, the Senate totally defunded "Freedom" in April.
Marxist, feminist, homosexual and other sanctioned perspectives all are
funded from compulsory activity fees. Conservatism is where proponents of
diversity draw the line.
As at Wellesley, the Brandeis administration tacitly condones this bias. At
a school named for the Supreme Court justice known for his expansive view of
the First Amendment, this is indeed ironic. Perhaps Brandeis should be
renamed Comstock U., to honor the 19th century book-burner.
Silverglate believes student censors are doing administrators' bidding.
"The administration uses the claim that they don't interfere as a cover. If
the campus paper published racist tracts, for instance, funding wouldn't
last five minutes."
As for academics' much touted commitment to diversity, the civil
libertarian dryly observes, "They want a student body where everybody looks
different, but everybody thinks alike."
If you'd care to know how America would look if the left ran the whole
show, consider the typical college campus -- or read the "Gulag
Archipelago."
5/05/99: Expecting the impossible of parents
5/03/99: Gore race-baits with impunity
4/29/99: Why Kosovo? Oh, just because
4/27/99: The president's pro-parent claptrap
4/22/99: McCain plays to the media
4/19/99: NATO would have favored the confederacy
4/14/99: Before we march into Kosovo
4/12/99: Taiwan more worthy of U.S. support
4/09/99: Bauer and Forbes --- Main Street vs. Wall Street
4/05/99: Bubba and Maddy lit Kosovo's fire
3/29/99: At Passover, Egypt is a state of mind
3/29/99: Could the GOP stand Pat in 2000?
3/17/99: Hollywood's party line in 1999
3/15/99: All bow, the court is in session
3/11/99: In praise of negative campaigning
3/09/99: Day-care study defies common sense
3/04/99: Starship Clinton orbits Kosovo
3/01/99: Public will blot out Broaddrick's accusation
2/25/99: Slick Hillie for Senate would be fun
2/23/99: Fascism in the name of fighting fascism
2/16/99: Was anything learned from the impeachment trial?
2/12/99: Educating the democratic voters of tomorrow
2/10/99: First Amendment doesn't apply to pro-life cause
2/08/99: Dems' triumph over Constitution complete
2/03/99: Blood of victims will drown out breakfast prayers
2/01/99: Without a home the heart knows no rest
1/29/99: Poster boy for term-limits
1/27/99: The 'so-what' defense in the City of Saints
1/25/99: Whose choice?
1/21/99: Censure worse than nothing
1/18/99: Words can`t dignify a dishonored presidency
1/13/99: Conservatism "with a heart" is conservatism without a head
1/11/99: If he isn't removed, watch out for Bill!
1/07/99: We can learn a lot from Teddy
1/05/99: Monica and a call to modesty
12/30/98: Will Bubba get away with it again?
12/28/98: Zionist dream alive and well on West Bank
12/18/98: Impeach or abandon the Rule of Law
12/16/98: Clinton moves Middle East closer to war
12/14/98: Why we lost interest in the homeless
12/10/98: No place at table for conservatives
12/07/98: The day America lost its innocence
12/02/98: Pilgrims Pilloried in streets of Plymouth
11/30/98: Caribbean dogpatch not a good candidate for statehood
11/25/98: Will Vermont force gay marriage on the nation?
11/23/98: The ACLU wants your kids to get a love life
11/18/98: Why liberals hate tobacco and guns more than drugs and crime
11/16/98: "Pleasantville" a countercultural morality play
11/13/98: Ads are a tough sell for abortion
11/09/98: Why gutless Republicans lost
11/06/98: Historians against the Constitution
11/02/98: Loving response to a hateful conference
10/28/98: Professor Death will fit right in at Princeton
10/26/98: Plymouth caves to Pilgrim foes
10/21/98: On '98 election, keep a critical eye on polls
10/19/98: Clinton could yet be 'prosperity president'
10/16/98: Working families -- Dems love 'em (stuffed)
10/09/98: Majoring in 'weirdness'
10/07/98: Friends of Billy Clinton
9/29/98: Letter from ex-soldier highlights defense peril
9/28/98: Answering arguments against impeachment
9/18/98: The nation that doesn't exist
9/14/98: Bubba isn't the only one who should be ashamed
9/11/98: Resolution of Clinton crisis will define national character
9/09/98: We're still just wild about Harry
9/07/98: Mexican banditry didn't end with Pancho Villa
9/02/98: Clinton forgives us!
8/31/98: Ashcroft's plain talking touches responsive chord
8/26/98: Public opinion be damned
8/24/98: Why liberals condone Clinton's lies
8/20/98: Time to move on -- to impeachment
8/12/98: With Bubba in the sexual privacy zone
8/10/98: The truth won't set Clinton free
8/06/98: Truth about Hiroshima is incontrovertible
8/04/98: Clinton not the first hollow president
7/30/98: "Small Soldiers" -- a fractured Vietnam allegory
7/27/98: Crime wave hits hometown
7/22/98: Love in an Internet fishbowl
7/20/98: Ads bring ex-gay movement out of closet
7/15/98: Brian and Amy -- the children of Roe
7/13/98: Why are we scared of obnoxious 'activists?'
7/6/98: Fonda still resists reality
7/1/98: New York blesses domestic partnerships
6/29/98: Teddy and Calvin stood for virtue
6/24/98: Will Clinton betray Taiwan?
6/22/98: Big tobacco? What about big casinos?
6/15/98: Religion -- God for what ails you
6/10/98: Planning Clinton's China itinery
6/8/98: Republicans' Custer offers advice
6/4/98: Oh, Dems Christian-bashers!
6/2/98: Goldwater did conservatives more harm than good
5/27/98: A Clinton-hater confesses
5/15/98: Giuliani's assault on marriage
5/13/98: Hillary knows what's best for everyone
5/11/98: To honor her would not be honorable
5/6/98: Conservative chasm: pragmatism vs. worship of marketplace
5/4/98: Anglo-saxon me
4/29/98:
Needle exchange programs are assisted-suicide
4/27/98: Chretien's mission of mercy to Fidel
4/22/98: School-choice is a religious freedom issue
4/20/98: Corporate execs deliver body parts to Beijing
4/14/98: National sales tax --- looks better all the time
4/13/98: The U.N. sinister? Hey, where did that idea come from?
4/8/98: Unions fight workers rights in 226 campaign
3/30/98: Africa's leaders should apologize
3/25/98: GOP shouldn't look to media for advice
3/22/98: You should care about Clinton's 'private life'
3/19/98: Color-coded reading, product of obsessive minds
3/16/98: Amendment will end exile of G-d from our public lives
3/9/98: Havana will break your heart
3/2/98: Vouchers Terrify Teachers' Union
2/25/98: Presidential politics starts at a resort hotel
2/23/98: Hillary's support comes at a price
2/18/98: How many times must we say "no" to gay rights?
2/16/98: Enoch Powell spoke the truth on immigration
2/11/98: Bubba behaving badly
2/9/98: A conservative dissent on the flag-burning amendment
2/5/98: We get the leaders we deserve
2/2/98: Send a signal that could penetrate boardroom doors
1/27/98: State of the president: hollow rhetoric
1/25/98: For Monica's playmate, we have no one to blame but ourselves
1/22/98: At Yale, bet on yarmulke over gown
1/19/98: Commission tackles America's fastest-growing addiction, gambling
1/15/98: Capital punishment and the hard case: no exceptions for Karla Faye Tucker
1/12/98: Partial-birth abortion and the GOP's future: the "big tent" meets truth in advertising
1/8/98: IOLTA: the Left's latest scam to crawl into our pockets
1/5/98: Connect the dots to create a terrorist state
1/1/98: The Unacceptables of 1997: Long may they rave
12/28/97: Hypocrisy is a liberal survival mechanism
12/23/97: Chanukah is no laughing matter
12/22/97: No merry Christmas for persecuted Christians around the world
12/18/97: Bosnia, Haiti, and how not to conduct a foreign policy
©1999, Creators Syndicate
|