As a proud North Carolinian and UNC–Chapel Hill grad, I am all too familiar with the incorrigible campus liberalism that pervades the state’s Research Triangle. Has your college town adopted the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Mine has. This pointless feel-good action, however, did little to stop a disheartening number of “open-minded” students and (sadly) professors from trampling all over the rights of former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey, by attempting to nullify his selection as law school commencement speaker on account of his being a “war criminal,” and former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R., Colo.), by violently disrupting the congressman’s speech on campus in protest against his “racist” opposition to in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. Of course, these are but a few of many ridiculous examples.
Even N.C. State, whose student body tends to be more conservative, is not immune. So I was not exactly shocked to see this item on The College Fix today, highlighting an e-mail from Jeffrey P. Braden, Dean of the NCSU College of Humanities and Social Science, in which he offers “a bit of advice” to students:
Finally, a bit of advice. The friends you make in college will be your friends for life, and will influence what you do and how you think throughout your life time-so choose wisely. Some of the best friends I made as a student were Plato, Henry David Thoreau, Mao Tse-tung, Margaret Mead, and Maya Angelou. My colleagues are eager to make similar introductions for you!
Any name in that circle of “best friends” that jumps out in particular? No doubt parents will be thrilled to learn that Dr. Braden and his colleagues are “eager” to introduce their son or daughter to their good buddy Mao, he who despite decades of technological advancement in the field of nuclear and biological weaponry, remains to this day unequaled in the art of mass homicide. Who better to “influence what you do and how you think throughout your life”? I can’t decide which is more galling, the fact that Braden thought it entirely reasonable to mention Mao and Plato in the same sentence, or knowing that at least one person in Braden’s office (presumably) must have read over his draft and given it the thumbs up.
Of course, one can’t rule out the possibility that Braden was simply advertising himself for a post in the Obama administration.