St. Louis University’s silly decision to dis-invite David Horowitz to speak on campus has produced the very “derision” that SLU said it was trying to avoid. We have a rare celestial alignment of the AAUP, NAS, John K. Wilson, and Erin O’Connor, among others, who agree that the SLU administrators have betrayed basic principles of academic freedom and plain good sense.
The irony of David’s providing the occasion for such consensus is certainly to be savored, and Inside Higher Ed and CHE have been savoring it. But I wanted to go a little farther. On the NAS website, Ashley Thorne and I have posted “Horowitz vs. Islamo-Billikenism,” which digs down deep into the bedrock strata of St. Louis University. SLU’s droll mascot is Billiken, a god dreamed up (literally) 100 years ago by a St. Louis art teacher. There was a brief Billiken fad in the U.S., and Billiken-worship caught on in Japan and some other places. Whatever Billiken meant back then, today he is an apt symbol for the moonstruck multiculturalism of the SLU administrators, who so dearly want a campus, in the words of the Dean of Students, “where folks are free not to feel marginalized,” that they muzzle responsible expression of important ideas. If we want a word for this odd combination of aggression and cowardice, Billikenism will do.