This will be shocking, I know. Recently at the University of Michigan, students affiliated with Young Americans for Liberty advertised a talk by University of Toronto geography professor Pierre Desrochers. His topic was “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.” That was too much for some students to take. The YAL posters were vandalized, apparently by The Socialist Equality Party, as we read in this Daily Caller piece.
One of the YAL students, Kayla Garthus, commented, “There is little culture of free exchange of ideas at the University of Michigan.” There certainly isn’t among the self-righteous authoritarians who demand socialism.
A bit of good news here is that despite all the pressure to divest from fossil fuels by student activists, U of M president Mark Schlissel has so far declined, although he has promised to “invest” more than $100 million in “sustainability efforts” at the university. Come to think of it, that’s probably worse. Divestment is an empty gesture that just costs a bit at the margin on the return on endowment funds, while squandering $100 million on dubious “sustainability” programs has a heavy cost.