“It is double the pleasure,” wrote Jean de la Fontaine, “to deceive the deceiver.” Well, it might also be said that it is double the deceit when the deceiver comes from academe, supposedly dedicated to the pursuit of truth.

In a particularly inept attempt to divert attention away from inconvenient revelations — a free-speech crisis on his campus — Southern Illinois University at Carbondale’s chancellor has, according to FIRE, engaged in baldfaced dissimulation:

SIUC Chancellor Samuel Goldman called documented claims about SIUC’s unconstitutional policies “baseless,” attacked the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education . . . in false and misleading public statements, and strongly defended SIUC’s Protest Policy despite actually changing the policy in response to a detailed letter from FIRE, the Southern Illinois Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Illinois Association of Scholars challenging SIUC’s manifestly unconstitutional free speech zone.

I wonder if Chancellor Goldman, who, in allegedly saying one thing and doing another on behalf of the institution he is bound to serve and honor, feels any remorse. And will the SIUC Board permit the deceiver to continue to deceive?