In what is yet more evidence that universities have become, as Abigail Thernstrom has described them, “islands of repression in a sea of freedom,” Toronto’s York University witnessed a near riot of some 100 pro-Palestinian Israel-haters, as police had to be called to usher Jewish students to safety after they had been barricaded inside the Hillel@York offices and were “isolated and threatened” by the physically and verbally aggressive demonstrators.Richard brings the recent anti-Israeli riot on campus as an example of the double standard for campus free speech. To that we may add the incident at Saint Mary's University, where pro-aborts and feminazis shut down a pro-life presentation, using similar tactics. And similarly the university administration chose to stop the presentation, removing the speaker and all the peaceful audience from campus, just to avoid inconveniencing the pro-abortion mob.
Not to mention the University of Calgary where the administration has openly taken the pro-abortion side, first threatening pro-life students with arrests and expulsion and then - suing them for trespassing. As for the student association - the one of which every full-time student is obliged to be a member and which is therefore supposed to represent all the students, not just those holding socially perverse views - those were quick to strip the pro-life group of its club status, barring them from using campus facilities for future presentations and making it clear that pro-lifers are less equal than all other students, let alone - leftie radicals.
Therein lies the hypocrisy in academic free speech on campus today: while coddling selected victim groups and granting them unlimited expression as a purported way to further diversity of thought, college administrators have regularly denied those same rights and privileges to groups deemed not to deserve or need them, namely, conservatives, Christians, Republicans, or those who seek a strong defense against radical Islam and terrorism aimed Western democracies, principally the U.S. and Israel.About a year ago, I saw a blog post quoting the results of a survey, according to which, most traditionalist Americans, among other things, didn't trust universities and academies. (Too bad I didn't save the link.) The blogger who quoted those results, used them bash the US Republicans: look at them in-bred church-going rednecks, clinging to their guns and religion, opposing science, opposing education, opposing progress... Well, that is not science. That is not education. That is not progress. Unfortunately, apart from the strictly professional programs, today's universities stand for censorship, indoctrination and extremism.
1 comment:
I would recommend Smith, Mayer, and Fritscher's 2008 book "Closed Minds," which contains the largest study conducted on these issues to date. Their findings refute many of the assertions that you've made in your post and indicate that the continuing focus on purported faculty bias is due to its usefulness in rallying conservative troops.
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