RUTHFULLY YOURS

HEATHER MAC DONALD: The day before I was slated to speak at Claremont McKenna College last April, I got one of those red-flagged “urgent” e-mails from an administrator. She explained that the college had picked up word of a brewing protest, and was considering moving the event to a building with fewer plate-glass windows and better means of egress. This was not exactly reassuring.

After hearing no additional news about a potential disruption, the administration decided to keep the event in the original building, the Athenaeum. But by the time I arrived, a massive mob of protesters had gathered, so a police escort brought me into the building through a secret passageway.

The auditorium was almost completely empty. Some 300 students had blockaded the building, making mincemeat of the police barricades that had been set up to keep the entrances open. The police simply stood down, as is too often true in our Black Lives Matter era. They didn’t want to offend the students, and they certainly didn’t want to be caught on video using force.

But what was most disconcerting was the fact that the few people who were in the room were transfixed by what was happening outside. Students were shouting and pounding on the plate-glass windows. The lectern had been moved, before the speech, away from the windows, so that when the lights went on inside, I would not be visible to the mob outside.

I took two questions via livestreaming, and at that point the police decided that they could no longer guarantee my safety. They quickly devised an escape plan: I was hustled through the kitchen and into a waiting police van, and sped away to the Claremont Police Department.

The incident was not the high point of open-mindedness in academic history.

FRANK FUREDI: We have to remember that the type of horrible experience that Heather had is just the tip of the iceberg. Fortunately, aggressive mobs of students are still relatively rare, but for every mob scene, there are lots of incidents of censorship and intimidation going on in college classrooms, seminars, and cafeterias.

These incidents represent a much larger problem. One set of radical political views dominates our campuses, and students who deviate from those views are being forced to self-censor. Americans tend to think that this trend is the legacy of the 1960s radicalism that played out in this country. Yet the same phenomenon is occurring across the entire Anglosphere. Similar attitudes have emerged on campuses in Canada, Australia, and my home country of England—none of which had quite the same experience with cultural leftism in the 1960s.

In my latest book, Populism and the Culture Wars in Europe, I argue that these struggles on campuses have little or nothing to do with 1960s radicalism. Today’s radicals have certainly adopted some of the rhetoric of old-fashioned leftism, but they’ve reformulated it into a therapeutic identity politics that would be unrecognizable to the antiracists of the 1960s.

A bit of good news out of Florida where the legislature passed an education reform bill that includes a provision that would outlaw campus “free speech zones.”

Liberals have used these misnamed “free speech zones” to marginalize people and ideas they didn’t agree with. Florida becomes the first state to ban them.

Campus Reform:

Joe Cohn, legislative policy director for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) told Campus Reform that the elimination of free speech zones will benefit students.

“Students shouldn’t have their free speech rights quarantined into misleadingly labeled free speech zones and unfortunately public institutions in Florida are doing just that,” he said.

Burnett also observed that the “Cause of Action” would allow students to sue the public institution in a state court if their First Amendment rights are violated, noting that this would be cheaper to litigate as opposed to a federal court.

“The Florida affiliate (of the ACLU) is somewhat of an outlier here in the position that they are taking, and in this particular instance, we think they’re wrong and we look forward to working with them on issues of common ground in the future,” he said, claiming that the Florida ACLU deviates in this respect from the other ACLU chapters across the country.

In a statement to Campus Reform, Generation Opportunity (GO-FL), a nonpartisan organization committed to more freedom and a bright future for all young Americans, said that the ending of free speech zones will help students confront challenging ideas.

The combination of academic social-justice Leftism and Islam is getting nastier by the day:

An Ohio music professor who said Muslim women and girls are safer in the U.S. than in any Middle Eastern country has been forced to retire. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports University of Cincinnati assistant professor Clifford Adams has been placed on administrative [leave] for the remainder of the semester and will retire May 1.

He made the comment online to a Muslim student who had criticized Donald Trump’s presidency and spoke about freedom and diversity. Adams wrote “how dare” she complain.

Adams didn’t respond immediately Friday to a request for comment. He earlier wrote a letter to The Enquirer saying he was “deeply sorry” and was trying to have a “lively, provocative, scholarly argument.” School spokesman Greg Vehr says the university is “committed to excellence and diversity.”

Excellence and diversity… right. Well, that’s certainly a funny way of showing a commitment to the former, at least. But “diversity,” now that’s a different story. Over the past 20 years or so, academic has been overwhelmed by the “diversity” fetish, which posits that a racially diverse student body is a desirable end in itself, rather than the byproduct (or not) of colorblind admissions procedures. The result is that “diversity” has become the single most important goal of the modern American university, with the educational standards and course offerings dumbed down accordingly.

Vox had a very long op-ed by an anonymous feminist professor who claims she was violated every time her husband had sex with her. She “acquiesced,” learning coping strategies, such as reading a book to keep her upper half occupied while her husband engaged her lower half.

On the nights when I couldn’t get out of it, we used a method that I had taught myself to tolerate and that he, astoundingly, tolerated as well: I read a book to distract myself for as long as I could while he did the thing he needed to do. I did not let him kiss me for the last several years of our marriage. That was the rule: You can f— me, but you can’t kiss me, and I don’t have to pretend to like it.

Isn’t this terribly insulting to the husband, to read a book while he is trying to have sex with her? I don’t even know if it is possible; I know I can’t read in cars or elevators. Isn’t it really impossible to read when the book keeps bouncing back and forth?

How could my husband listen to me say what I said – even once, even timidly – and sleep well that night, much less continue to insist on sleeping with me?

Of course, the counter-question is, how could any woman have stayed married if she was so unhappy with the sex? The answer to that question comes in a bit. But first, a little about the author of this screed:

I am a humanities professor who teaches feminist theory, models feminist behavior for my students and my own children, and has achieved success in a male-dominated field.

Wait. Feminist theory is a male-dominated field? She must be talking about all those transgender feminist professors.

Last year, my teenage son and I chanted in support of women’s reproductive rights at the Women’s March in Washington.

Stanford University College Republicans were told they cannot include an image of the American flag on club tee-shirts in a recent email from the private institution’s copyright office.

“Stanford does not approve the use of the American (or other flag on product also featuring our trademarks (including the Stanford name) [sic],” states a recent email — obtained by College Fix — to the College Republicans student president from a trademark licensing associate at Stanford University.

“We can approve red/white/blue themed product but cannot approve this design which features altered version of the flag in the background of the design, and within the initials for the organization name. I note you feature a different design on your website — we would be able to approve that design on product,” the email continues.

While the university has cast the censorship as a matter of copyright infringement, the Stanford University trademark guide does not mention flags in any capacity.
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The Stanford College Republicans incoming president, John Rice-Cameron, told College Fix he does not want to use the club’s old logo, as was suggested by the copyright office.

“The [new] logo is emblematic of our club,” he said. “It shows we are willing to boldly promote conservatism.”

Answering a question about which there could hardly have been much doubt, Yale’s admissions blog said last month the university would not penalize prospective students who are suspended for joining antigun protests in the wake of the Parkland shooting. “Yale will NOT be rescinding anyone’s admission decision for participating in peaceful walkouts for this or other causes.”

So far, so routine. A university like Yale would not ordinarily snatch back an admissions offer just because an accepted senior had skipped a day of class, no matter the reason.

But there’s more. The post’s author, senior assistant director of admissions Hannah Mendlowitz, makes clear that Yale considers participation in such a walkout to be a plus, rather than a subject of indifference.

“For those students who come to Yale, we expect them to be versed in issues of social justice,” Ms. Mendlowitz writes. “I have the pleasure of reading applications from San Francisco, where activism is very much a part of the culture. Essays ring of social justice issues.” Even if applicants from less-fortunate areas of the country cannot be expected to meet the Bay Area standard, the message is clear. The post is titled “In Support of Student Protests.”

This endorsement of activism raises a few questions. Would Yale really turn away a brilliant young flutist, chemist or poet who, while solidly educated in history, religion and government, is not specifically “versed in issues of social justice”? What about students who have pursued courses based on great works of the past? Must they be versed in contemporary views of social justice too? Besides, which causes constitute social justice?

Harvard, like many elite universities, has become increasingly intolerant.

It has sought, through a series of administrative decisions, to substitute its own values for the individual moral consciences of its students and to punish those who stray from the university’s narrow dogma. Most recently, Harvard moved to ban all exclusive social clubs, including fraternities and sororities, by 2022.

Despite Harvard’s promises that student rights are of primary importance on campus, the proposal would deprive students of their fundamental right to freedom of association, enshrined in the First Amendment.

Ultimately, Harvard’s decision to punish students who are members of such organizations, which choose members based on gender, comes down to a difference of opinion about values.

President Drew Faust explained in a 2016 letter that Harvard’s commitment to having “a truly inclusive community” was one of the university’s “deepest values.” Faust also asserted that gender is an “arbitrary” distinction between individuals.