Gone are the days when academic freedom was the watchword of college campuses. Today, thought control is the dominant theology on campuses, often hiding behind the mantras of diversity and multiculturalism.
The American Enterprise magazine's survey of the political affiliations of professors in 19 major universities confirms similar surveys. The tally: Cornell, 166 professors registered in the Democratic Party or another party of the left, and only six registered with Republicans or another party of the right; the Harvard score is 50-2; Penn State 59-10; Stanford 151-17; Brown 54-3; University of California-Berkeley 59-7; UCLA 141-9; University of Texas 94-15.
More than two-thirds of colleges and universities have speech codes even though, at least at public universities, they are unconstitutional. The codes are aimed at forbidding the free speech of conservatives, Christians, and humor magazines (since the Politically Correct brigade and the feminists have no sense of humor).
Many of the speech codes are as silly and intolerant as the British speech code at Stockport College which made international news by banning 40 "offensive" words and phrases. Lady and gentleman are banned because of "class implications," history and chairman are sexist, "normal couple" is simply unacceptable, and "slaving over a hot stove" is offensive to the plight of real slaves.
Colleges and universities have hired highly-paid itinerant facilitators to train incoming freshmen to feel guilty if they are white and to think politically correct thoughts about race and diversity. Two of the films widely used at these Soviet-style re- education sessions are "Skin Deep," which presents intolerance and racism as the norm in America, and "Blue-Eyed", a 90-minute tirade designed to humiliate people with blue eyes and empower people with brown eyes.
Get ready for the next round of leftwing Commencement speakers. Cornell has already announced it has signed up that rowdiest of leftists, James Carville.
Al Gore and Madeleine Albright were recent Commencement speakers at Harvard, Robert Reich and Janet Reno at the University of California-Berkeley, Hillary Clinton and Jimmy Carter at the University of Pennsylvania, Gloria Steinem and Whoopi Goldberg at Wellesley. At most prestigious colleges, students never hear a conservative Commencement speaker.
Diversity includes requiring freshmen at Northern Arizona University to read "Science and the Case for Animal Rights" by Steven M. Wise so students can learn that animals can be "persons." But multiculturalism does not permit the campus newspaper at the University of California-Riverside to publish a cartoon critical of the large numbers of foreign teaching assistants who speak only broken English.
Nor does multiculturalism permit criticism of Hispanic students working for the Aztlan movement calling for revolutionary liberation from "gringos." When the conservative campus paper The Patriot printed a critical story, its staff was personally harassed, some received death threats, the office was broken into, and 3,000 copies of the magazine were stolen.
At the women's studies program at the University of South Carolina, students must acknowledge the existence of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism and other institutional forms of oppression of women before being permitted to participate in class discussions. Alas, this is typical of the 900 women's studies courses taught nationwide.
The textbooks in women's studies programs teach that women are the victims of a male-dominated society, that marriage is an "instrument of oppression," and that fathers are "foreign male elements" who stand between mothers and daughters. This was the conclusion of an Independent Women's Forum review of five of the most widely used textbooks and 30 course outlines from major universities.
The obscene show touted by feminists as the way to observe Valentine's Day, "The Vagina Monologues," will be staged on 667 college campuses this year (up from 550 last year). The original version eulogizes the "good rape" of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old woman who plies her with alcohol and leads her to conclude "I'll never need to rely on a man."
At Georgetown University, the student who dared to write a critical review for the campus newspaper was fired.
College thought control is not merely political. The attack on morality is so savage that it sometimes even breaks into the New York Times.
One Times headline read: "No Big Deal, but Some Dorm Rooms Have Gone Coed," with the push coming "from gay groups that said it was 'heterosexist' to require roommates to be of the same sex." Another Times headline described The Naked Dorm at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, which advertises itself as a diverse, multicultural, political active dormitory for men and women where clothing is "optional."
Students who are victimized by the new thought control should contact the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), an organization dedicated to the First Amendment and academic freedom. FIRE is piling up a series of successes in discrediting the intolerant Politically Correct campus gestapo.
