|
Jewish World Review / Dec. 10 1998 / 21 Kislev, 5759
Don Feder
No place at table for conservatives
IN THEIR BOOK The Shadow University: the Betrayal of Liberty on America's
Campuses , Harvey Silverglate and Alan Charles Kors bluntly charge,
"Universities have become the enemy of a free society."
This indictment is underscored by a recent incident at Columbia.
Accuracy in Academia scheduled a two-day conference at the school for
mid-November, titled, "A Place at the Table: Conservative Ideas in Higher
Education."
Columbia proceeded to demonstrate that while there's plenty of room at the
table for Marxist analysis, feminist dogma and multicultural intimidation,
conservatives are lucky to even get crumbs.
Accuracy in Academia, which challenges lecture-hall indoctrination, put
together an impressive roster of speakers, including Ward Connerly, the
University of California regent who has championed successful initiatives to
bar quotas in college admissions and employment, and Dinesh D'Souza, author
of The End of Racism.
In his Friday evening remarks, Connerly (who described his ancestry as
African, Indian, Irish and French) reminded listeners that race isn't
destiny. "I don't want my grandchildren to grow up in a society where they
have to check a box," the businessman declared.
The conference drew the notice of the multicultural mob, which operates on
the assumption that what it finds disagreeable is indisputably racist and
therefore must be crushed under a jackbooted heel.
About 100 noisy protesters showed up to denounce the gathering. They
chanted, made faces, waved placards and engaged in other substitutes for
thought.
The administration, which was looking for an excuse to cancel the
conference, forced AIA to pay an addition $3,200 for extra security.
When the added expense didn't deter the group, administrators ordered the
Saturday session limited to those with Columbia ID cards. Since two-thirds
of the conferees were from off-campus, this effectively killed the
conference, as the administration intended.
In protest, D'Souza spoke in nearby Morningside Park. The civil
libertarians showed up to drown out his speech with chants of "Ha, ha,
you're outside. We don't want your racist lies."
Aside: At least student demonstrators of my day could rhyme. How much
imagination would it have taken to come up with something snappy, like,
"Bread and jam, cakes and pies. We don't want your racist lies" -- or words
to that effect?
Student activists hold the whip hand on most campuses. Academic
bureaucrats, as Theodore Roosevelt once remarked of William McKinley, have
the backbone of a chocolate eclair.
Instead of enforcing civility and protecting intellectual inquiry and
debate, they usually take the expedient of banning conservative speakers,
penalizing alternative newspapers and instituting speech codes.
Just as in the 1980s, when Reagan administration officials were regularly
shouted down by opponents of an anti-communist foreign policy, today's
campuses are increasingly closed to conservative thought.
In October, Amy Tracy, an ex-lesbian and former employee of the National
Organization for Women, was barred from speaking at Boston College. "I don't
want homophobes and gay-bashers on this campus," Dean of Students Robert
Sherwood reportedly told the event's organizer.
Sherwood did not specify what was more "homophobic," that Tracy came out of
the homosexual lifestyle or is talking about it.
At Georgetown University, a Jesuit institution, almost the entire press run
of the Oct. 8-9 issue of the conservative "Academy" was trashed. It took the
school's president, Father Leo O'Donovan, two weeks of hard thinking about
whether the First Amendment really matters (when it interferes with a
sensitivity regime) before he issued a tepid condemnation of the "alleged
theft."
In their book, Kors and Silverglate focus on speech codes -- the academic
left's automatic censorship machine. These attempts at mind control save
them the effort of shouting down and intimidating opposition speakers.
Under the codes, words the local HQ of racial, gender, sexual equality find
offensive (because they challenge deeply held beliefs) are simply verboten.
Those who express dangerous ideas are keelhauled.
The authors conclude, "It is time for the citizens of that society to
recognize this scandal of enormous proportions and hold these institutions
to account." High time.
Higher education operates on the earnings of Middle America -- in the form
of tuition payments for sons and daughters and federal subsidies like Pell
Grants. Only masochists pay to have pain deliberately inflicted on them.
12/07/98: The day America lost its innocence
12/02/98: Pilgrims Pilloried in streets of Plymouth
11/25/98: Caribbean dogpatch not a good candidate for statehood
11/25/98: Will Vermont force gay marriage on the nation?
11/18/98: The ACLU wants your kids to get a love life
11/16/98: 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