A former student sends this along after having read our post titled Orwell Warned Us About People Like This:
Your recent article entitled Orwell Warned Us About People Like This reminded me yet again why I find your site so enjoyable. Your assertion that "universities do not exist to challenge established thought-forms, they're not supposed to be "opening" minds" is, in my opinion, completely accurate at most universities. While there are some professors that are the exception, often they are denied tenure, made to silence their views, etc.
Most of the professors in today's universities seem to simply peddle a blatant left-wing agenda, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't try to pass it off as unbiased. For example, my Contemporary Arab World Professor nonchalantly will defend the Arabs/Palestinians and rant on against the "evils of Israel" - how they butcher civilians, stole the land from the Arabs, have no right to that land, etc.- and she doesn't present this as an opinion, but as accepted belief. The sad part is, for most of the left-wing ideologues at American University (and other schools), they view their extremist beliefs as in the mainstream, unquestionable, and perfectly acceptable.
As always, I find your site informative and entertaining. Keep up the superb work.
We wonder what this student's university would do if a professor of Israeli or Jewish studies promoted the same sorts of hate-inspiring propaganda against the Palestinians. Doubtless, he or she would be the object of loud protests, demands for disciplinary hearings, and on and on. Universities, or at least certain departments in many of them, have lost their soul along with their intellectual integrity. They've abandoned the academic ideals of scholarship, objectivity, and fairness and have transformed themselves into crass megaphones for left-wing ideology.
Mama, before you send your child off to college, you better check into what you'll be getting for your thirty five thousand dollars a year. You might also do well, if you have a high tolerance for sleaze, to read Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. It's an eye opener for a lot of parents.
