The latest cause over Chapel Hill way has to do with a proposal from the John William Pope Foundation to support a minor in Western cultures on campus. The foundation would give a bunch of money to the university, hundreds of thousands of dollars for a while and then maybe millions if the program passes Pope’s muster. Students would study literature, religion and philosophy in the cultures of Europe and North and South America.

Now friends, I know what you’re thinking: protests from faculty and graduate students have erupted over this?

But in so wondering, you would be ignoring one overriding fact: The Pope Foundation, you see, is a supporter of conservative causes, and thus might be suspected to be an agent of conservative thought, which is about as welcome on the Chapel Hill campus as Yankees in Atlanta in “Gone with the Wind.” (Aunt Pittypat, recast as a Tri-Delt, might now be standing on the steps of the sorority screaming, “Conservatives in Chapel Hill! Howevah did they get in?”)


No, Mistah Pope ? I shall protest!