What we have here — with the resolution Jon has reproduced and the whole uproar at Chapel Hill over the proposal for a Western Civ program funded with Pope Foundation money — is a case of protest for the sake of protesting. These people know (or could readily find out if they were interested in the facts) that the university would be in control of the program, would choose the professors, and so on. The Western Civ program would be entirely sealed off from the Pope Center and the other conservative/free market activities that the Foundation supports. So why all the fuss?
I’ll suggest two reasons:
1. The campus left hates the Pope Center because we criticize academically silly stuff that they like. We also criticize academically silly stuff to which they’re indifferent, but that doesn’t matter. If we say anything against, say, Women’s Studies, that proves to them that we must be sexist. If we criticize Black Studies, we’re necessarily racist. This is the old Marxist technique of branding anyone who disagrees with you as a “class enemy” who is by definition evil and not to be reasoned with. Since they hate the Pope Center, this is a chance to strike back.
2. The drift of the UNC curriculum has been steadily in the direction of, for lack of a better term, multiculturalism. Ethnic studies, gender studies, social justice studies and so forth. To the left, this is progress — victorious skirmishes in their war to remake the university and ultimately society in their authoritarian fashion. If the Western Civilization program were adopted, that would be taken as a reverse. They would see that not as an opportunity for students who were interested to learn more about Aristotle and Aquinas and Shakespeare and Mill and Smith and yes, even Marx, but instead as a win for the bad guys.
As I said above, protest for the sake of protesting.
