I share David’s concern that campus watchdogs are “beginning to suffer from campus outrage fatigue.” It is discouraging to find that no matter how many legal decisions go against them, and no matter how many headlines embarrass them, campus leaders continue to disrespect basic freedoms. The selectiveness with which they apply their judgment, and the double-standards they invoke to do so, are particularly galling. And yet, the pattern continues. One wonders if the momentum that conservative, libertarian, and classic liberal critics have built in the last few years has only made the campus mindset become less outspoken, but no less illiberal. And if the campus officials hunker down for long enough, the outside critics will gradually tire out, or go away, or lose their “newsworthiness.”

Progress has been made in that the campus culture can no longer automatically rule conservative/libertarian ideas out of moral and intellectual bounds. Those who do not toe the campus line can no longer be kept out of the room on principle, at least not openly so. But one wonders whether the entrenched campus attitudes have really been affected, whether dissent has really gained some respectability or not. People who’ve worked inside the Campus Life office for 20 years aren’t likely to change their minds just because some Right-wing gadfly makes a ruckus over a speech policy. A week passes, the gadfly is pegged as a disgruntled prof whom nobody likes, and things get back to normal. The dissenter has nothing but his principles to support him, while the institution has everything else. Who can fight City Hall year after year?