Over on the homepage, I have an extended piece describing the lawless corruption of the university Left. Towards the end I described a scenario experience by all-too-many conservative parents — where there kids come home from college fundamentally changed, rejecting their family’s values and beliefs. While that does happen to a significant number of students, there’s a hidden cost even for those students who don’t alter their beliefs in school, who enter and leave school still fundamentally believing the same things. Simply put, they learn to let the Left have its way. They may resent the Left, but they learn that fighting is too hard, and it’s just easier to roll your eyes, let the social justice warriors have their fun, and retreat into ever-shrinking cultural refuges of church and home. (I used to add “sports” to that mix, but ESPN is bringing Yale values to the gridiron.)
This email, to Rod Dreher from a dissenting Missouri student, illustrates the point perfectly. Here’s the key excerpt:
When someone cries “racism”, it’s virtually impossible for anyone to speak up from the other side of the aisle without being called a racist. You’ll see precious few people actually involved with the school at any level arguing against what happened — certainly not staff or faculty because they don’t want to be perceived as being in league with [former president] Wolfe and potentially lose their job — but I think even the student voice from that perspective will be small. It won’t be a crowd of people demonstrating on the quad, anyway, and I really doubt anyone would be willing to undertake a hunger strike in an effort to reverse what happened (which, without a football team, would be unlikely to succeed anyway). One person with a sandwich board or a letter to the editor of The Maneater – maybe. But I think most people who feel like I do will keep silent because we’re too afraid of what’s going to happen if we speak up.
So while it can be amusing to watch campus lefties tear each other to shreds in a fit of South Park-style hysterics, don’t ever forget that they’re not just indoctrinating our children, they’re also teaching them how to lose.