Trigger warnings, speech codes, riots against guest speakers, comedians cancelling college appearances (claiming students have no sense of humor), tearing down statues, re-naming buildings, kangaroo court demands for alleged male sex offenders not charged in court, discrimination police spying on classmates suspected of violations of the politically correct party line, gender-neutral dorms, sex worker guest lectures (no objections here) and moronic demonstrations on political issues sum up the milieu of college today.
Yet none of these bizarre behaviors is addressed by school presidents, trustees, and boards of governors. They must think ludicrous anarchy is just fine since all they talk about is more and more diversity or reducing tuition to attract even more academically marginal students. Meanwhile, their schools are descending into Orwellian hell.
A telling example is the much talked-about censorship of the college newspaper, the holy of holies of free speech at Wesleyan College, an elite liberal arts college in Connecticut. A Washington Post columnist reported on this showdown in the continuing conflict between traditional values and radical misadventure.
The student newspaper Argus published a guest editorial, penned by a 30-year-old veteran soldier, concerning the rhetoric employed by blacks against police since the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting incident involving a black male and a white police officer. What ensued was the predictable call for the head of the author and de-funding the student paper for daring to exercise its right—and duty—to publish controversial opinions that may disagree with the campus political party line du jour. The paper’s funding was eventually restored, partially. It received less than half of its past funding, with the remaining distributed to three other campus periodicals.
Judging from the folderol at Wesleyan, cutting-edge schools in the U.S. are becoming more like Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow in its salad days during the Cold War. That college claimed to have students thinking about communism 24/7, and basks in pride for turning out illustrious graduates, including Carlos The Jackal, still alive in a French prison after a Robin Hood-like career as a terrorist.
Considering the radicalism, censorship and rhetoric in vogue today at institutions of higher learning in the United States, Carlos-like political gangsters should be commonplace. However, they are unlikely to emerge from today’s ivy towers of academe and force their views with kidnappings and killings. No, the new breed are all talk. They will bludgeon American society with video game violence, sensitivity training, diversity initiatives, show-only trials, transsexual values, phone text manifestos and calls for a new, sweet, Europeanized America. No irony, no independent views, no freedom and certainly no sense of humor.