The Independent story on the Pope Center (and other groups) as somehow besieging poor college administrators and profs behind their quaint ivied walls is just hilarious. For the making of criticisms that higher ed has turned into an intellectual wasteland of vapid courses and instructors who are often more interested in telling students what to think rather than adding to their stock of knowledge so they can better think on their own, we are branded as the barbarians. The truth is that the higher ed establishment is quite safe in its folly, except when it goes overboard with unconstitutional speech codes. No one vetoes silly or patently politicized courses. No one gets in the way of hiring an overwhelmingly leftist faculty. No one prevents schools of employing “diversity czars.” The arguments that the Pope Center makes against the trends in higher education these days are simply that — arguments. To portray the situation as a medieval siege is laughable.
But wait a minute. If the UNC student who said that he didn’t approve of homosexuality was guilty of “violent hate speech,” then maybe the Pope Center is a bristling arsenal of swords, maces, and trebuchets.
