A proposal for a Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago has a lot of leftist profs hopping mad, according to a Chicago Tribune story.

They’re afraid that the institute might be friendly to a particular “point of view” and could give people the wrong idea about the university. Apparently all these profs know about Friedman is that he was a “right winger.” Friedman did more than anyone to get rid of military conscription, opposed the war on drugs, and showed that occupational licensing usually hurts poor consumers. Yeah, Friedman was a stooge of the military-industrial complex.

As Friedman often said, there isn’t “right-wing” economics or “left-wing” economics, just good economics and bad economics. Too bad the academic Left insists on seeing everything through its simplistic political lenses.

This reminds me very much of the battle at Hamilton College in 2006 regarding the proposed Alexander Hamilton Center, where the faculty leftists threw a fit because they didn’t care for the scent of traditionalism they were getting. So they unleashed a barrage of specious arguments to cover up the fact that they just don’t want any “right-wing” ideas invading their space. Hamilton professor Robert Paquette wrote about that for the Pope Center here.

Remember — diversity is to be celebrated. Unless it involves ideas that don’t fit into the collectivist, multiculturalist, postmodern mold.