Critical Mass

Columbia University junior Matt Mireles has a piece in the New York Post today claiming the Minutemen protest was the result of "white guilt, though in a mutated form" - that is, smug rich kids feel guilty about being smug rich kids and so they attempt to compensate.  From the article:

The insularity and homogeneity of Columbia's campus makes students feel guilty when they come across New Yorkers who are visibly less privileged. In the eyes of my fellow students, poor and working-class minorities are an exotic, vulnerable species that needs the protection and support of upstanding Ivy Leaguers like ourselves . . . Except when we actually have to be around them, in which case we complain about their bad manners and uncouth behavior. [. . .]

Immigration in America isn't really about race. It's about class. There were no jingoist protests during the 1980s and '90s when equally dark-skinned doctors and software engineers from India flooded the American labor market. No, we loved them. Poor people, well, that's another story.

Many commentators immediately latched on to the irony of the Minutemen situation by pointing to Columbia's previous free speech scandal, just a few days before.  The CU club hockey team had distributed fliers which said "Don't be a pussy, play Columbia hockey," according to ABC News.  This, an obvious affront to the fairer sex, led to a sentence of suspension of the team's privilege to play for the first semester of the season, probation for two years, and a forced apology to the Columbia community.  This has since been reduced to a 2-game suspension, a one year probation, the apology, and team members' participation in "leadership training sessions."  All this for what Melissa Repko of the Columbia Spectator calls "off-color recruitment fliers," or what Columbia's Dr. M. Dianne Murphy, director of Intercollegiate Athletics and Physical Education, called "the abdication of leadership responsibilities by senior members of the Club."

Remind me again, what disciplinary action has been taken against the Columbia students who actually physically assaulted other people, rather than simply using common slang in their posters?

Turns out Columbia University hasn't finished ticking people off yet. Apparently, just hours before a conservative Arab invited by the College Republicans was set to speak on terror-related issues, CU decided to cancel all RSVPs to the event and limit attendance to a short list of guests. At least 77 people had reserved tickets for the event, and one blogger got in touch with an RSPV-er who found out about the cancelation while he was on a Greyhound traveling to the event. Here's part of his response to the cancelation email from the Univeristy Chaplain:

I wonder what prompted you to suddenly change the attendance policy? I mean, I have signed up well in advance (prior notice, hint-hint), got the confirmation on time (hint-hint), and left Boston on time, having spent $50 for the roundtrip ticket.

It couldn't be due to political correctness, could it? I mean, you wouldn't be afraid of some outsiders coming to the event from afar so as to get educated, enlightened, and inspired, right?

This, dear Jewelnel, smells of a scandal. Which you are about to have, on account of this cancellation, as well as for quite a few other reasons. Your decision is outrageous, unfair, inconsiderate, undemocratic, anti-intellectual, anti-academic, frivolous, gratuitous, etc. Oh, wait, I forgot -- did I mention it was also highly untimely? This decision flies in the face of the First Amendment and everything else that makes this country great.

 We'll see if this mini-scandal expands any more.

From the Mercury News:

With a showdown over public school integration looming in the Supreme Court, a cadre of former University of California officials is urging the high court to uphold the use of race in desegregation plans. [. . .]

In their brief, the former campus administrators argue that racially integrated public schools are essential for a cohesive society, since they expose young people to peers from a variety of backgrounds. Integration plans also help ensure that a diverse pool of graduates enter elite universities, the brief states.

John Zmirak of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute has an interesting article on Townhall.com praising what he considers real tolerant colleges: not merely colleges that harbor LGBT organizations, but those who actually want to hear all sides of the story.  From the article:

No, in my experience and the reports of the hundreds of students and teachers we consult each year, there’s little reason to fear much hostility to students with offbeat sexual tastes. And that’s a good thing. Personal attacks on people because of their “sexual identity” are uncivilized, and ought to be punished like any other form of harassment. What intolerance we have found on campuses across the country seems aimed at a very different sort of student: The kind who expresses and defends traditional social mores, and Christian faith. In just the past year, there have been numerous incidents reported on in mainstream and niche media which suggest that schools which would move heaven and earth to avoid incommoding “transgender” students are cavalier about the rights of conservatives and people of faith.

 In response to these "tolerant" schools, ISI has produced the book All-American Colleges: Top Schools for Conservatives, Old-Fashioned Liberals, and People of Faith.  Here's what he has to say about the schools on the list:

These are not schools where students with unconventional sexuality would find themselves persecuted — though the dress code at the Citadel, for instance, might prove awkward for cross-dressers. They are schools which take seriously the old ideals of humane liberal education, academic freedom, and openness to faith. At these schools, students of many different viewpoints will find the breathing room they need, in an environment of intellectual rigor. To my mind, those qualities ought to be what any student is seeking.

As the Philadelphia School District votes to approve "Gay and Lesbian History Month on its official calendars," I am left wondering, is this really necessary?  Our own Mr. Benson pointed out that college seniors can barely answer basic questions about American history; is this really going to be helped by studying specialized, politically correct history courses in high school?

A chief architect of last week's disgraceful display at Columbia has written a guest column in CU's student newspaper in which she attempts to justify the behavior of her angry mob. In the very first paragraph, Karina Garcia dispels any notion that the protestors may regret their actions after a few days' reflection: "We are proud to send the message to the country that racist and fascist groups are not welcome at Columbia or in New York City," she writes.

It gets worse from there.  Garcia grossly misrepresents the Minutemen organization's mission, scolds the University for daring to investigate the incident, and berates the College Republicans for inviting a "fascist thug" to campus.

Lest readers get the wrong idea, Garcia dutifully explains that the controversy "is not an issue of free speech. The Minutemen were able to reserve a hall at our university and had the protection of campus security and the NYPD-all to espouse their hate speech. We along with hundreds of others expressed our right to speak and protest."

This twisted definition of free speech should disturb liberals and conservatives alike.  It is Columbia University's duty in this case to defend free speech and punish the unremorseful left-wing thought police responsible for last week's travesty. 

As we were reminded this morning by a little rainbow flag at the bottom of the Yale Daily News’ front page, today is national coming out day, which is celebrated at Yale by the installation of a pink door on Old Campus so gays can “come out” “to the cheers of friends.”

To celebrate this at the Yale Daily News, they’ve run not one but two op-eds on the topic. I only mention this because I find the first one particularly entertaining.

The piece was written by Stephen Engel, a grad student who has already published a book entitled, “The Unfinished Revolution: Social Movement Theory and the Gay and Lesbian Movement.” In his article he asks all gay Republicans to come out so they can take back their party, and he makes many unintentionally amusing statements, my favorite one of which is as follows:

“If the Republicans do lose control of the House or Senate or both in the upcoming election, the party will not be compelled to answer the dysfunctional logic of its numerous policy stances such as the war in Iraq, the war on terror or the inadequacies of its Medicare prescription drug policy. Rather, it can avoid any necessary self-assessment and simply blame the gays. It’s not a new strategy for that party. To garner votes in 2004, Republicans often blamed the gays for bringing on the destruction of civilization in the form of same-sex marriage. In 2006, they may again blame gay Republicans for fostering a crisis in the last few weeks before the election.”

For those of you with strong stomachs, you can visit the YDN’s op-ed page here.

-Dan Gelernter 

The College of William and Mary's website lists upcoming events, such as the following:

"Mexorcist"

Presented by performance artist and writer Guillermo Gomez-Pena. Free and open to the public.

Gomez-Pena, also the artistic director of Pocha Nostra, explores cross-cultural issues, immigration, politics of language, "extreme culture" and new technologies in his performance. The performance, presented in a mix of English and Spanish, uses mixed genres, fact and fiction, social reality and pop culture and Chicano humor and activist politics to convene its message. This event is co-sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Reves Center, the Charles Center and the departments of Hispanic Studies, Sociology, Modern Languages, and American Studies.

Mixing fact and fiction, eh?  And that's different from the usual debates on "race," immigration, etc, how?

Jacob Schuman of Brown University has an article in The Brown Daily Herald called called “Columbia beats us at our own game: Is Brown no longer the craziest liberal Ivy?”  The gist of the piece is that because of the recent debacle at Columbia, "Brown University may no longer be considered the most outrageously left-wing school in the Ivy League."  Furthermore:

No more will the New Curriculum and a penchant for reefer maintain Brown's image as the Ivy League haven for left-wing loonies and radical progressive politics. We can no longer afford to rest on our liberal laurels. It's not too late to reclaim the title for Brown - we have a revolutionary reputation to uphold! All we need is a chance to one-up the Columbia protesters in radicalism. Since their leftist activists heckled and disrupted a speech by an icon of right-wing America, out leftist activists could heckle and disrupt a speech by an icon of American liberalism, like, say, Hillary Clinton! Oh, wait a minute...

 My favorite line from the article: "Founded by Baptists, the theologically progressive badasses of Christianity, [Brown] was the first college in the country to admit students regardless of religious affiliation."  Read the whole piece; it's worth it.

The software that we use to produce this website currently does not allow us to display our traffic tracker publicly (they are working on that, so they say). For a couple of relevant figures to give you a rough idea of how we're doing: We had 253 unique readers yesterday (our daily readership is steadily on the rise) and we now have over 108,000 raw hits.

As I write this, I would like to be preparing to get to sleep so I can get up on the early side tomorrow morning. This is unfortunately impossible, however, as my college courtyard is full of people screaming,
“Houn B****! Get out of the Way!
The Houn! The Houn!
The Houn is on fire!
We don’t need no water let the motherf***** burn!”

This is “freshman initiation” for Calhoun College at Yale. When I was a freshman, I had the foresight to go to a concert, rather than be led blindfolded to our college courtyard, dancing the Macarena and screaming obscenities. This year, however, I neglected to remove myself (I went to a concert last night instead). Perhaps given another fifteen minutes they’ll get tired of screaming and go home.

This has been another update from the elite Ivy League.

-Dan Gelernter 

In an effort to reduce its impact on global warming, the small College of the Atlantic has commited itself to completely offset its emissions. The Washington Post reports:

The newly installed president, David F. Hales, said in his inauguration Sunday that the college will either cut the amount of fossil fuels burned in connection with campus activities or invest in emissions-cutting projects elsewhere to compensate. The school, which is in Bar Harbor and has about 300 undergraduates, will also offset emissions generated by student travel to and from campus.

While I remain skeptical of man's effect on global warming, I heartily applaud any attempts to conserve energy and/or take reasonable measures to care for the environment. From an economic standpoint, it's wise for students to turn lights and A/C units off when they leave. The dorms on my campus have community microwaves because they suck too much power to be allowed in the rooms.

Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam has painted a "bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity," according to MSNBC's Financial Times.  Even though coming from a school that promotes forced "diversity," if it really may be called that, Putnam's results were anything but supportive of diverse communities:

His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor. [. . .]

 The core message of the research was that, "in the presence of diversity, we hunker down", he said. "We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it's not just that we don't trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don't trust people who do look like us."

Over at NewsWithViews, physician Patrick Jonston makes the case against "Gun-Free Zones" in public places like hospitals, buses, and schools.  Presumably this would include many educational institutions which have, like mine, banned not only firearms but also knives with blades over 3" long, etc.  From the article:

Our nation’s “gun-free zones” are a microcosm of the politics of mass murder on a much grander scale: Mao tse Tung, Hitler, and Stalin, the three most infamous mass murderers in history, only succeeded in their diabolical tyranny because of successful gun control. Gun control is job security for criminals and tyrants, who lie about what keeps us safe and usurp God-given rights to protect us. Guns in the hands of teachers, doctors, and bus drivers are not what is transforming our “Gun-free zones” into killing zones. It’s guns in the hands of criminals, giddy with the leftist policies that guarantee their victims and any eyewitnesses will be disarmed and defenseless.