The Cowards of Academia

Townhall.com ^ | April 25, 2017 | Dennis Prager

[Kaslin]

Now that student mobs at universities around America (and elsewhere in the West) have silenced conservative speaker after conservative speaker, it has dawned on a small number of left-wing professors that the public is beginning to have contempt for the universities. As a result, a handful of academics at a handful of universities have signed statements on behalf of allowing "diverse" views to be heard at the university.

These statements are worthless.

While some of the professors who have signed them may sincerely believe that the university should honor the value of non-left free speech, one should keep in mind the following caveats.

First, the number of professors, deans and administrators who have signed these statements is very small.

Second, while no one can know what animates anyone else, it's a little hard to believe that many of those who did sign are sincere. If they are, why haven't we heard from them for decades? Shutting out conservatives and conservative ideas is not new. Plus, it's easy to sign a letter. You look righteous ("Of course, I support free speech.") and pay no price.

Third, these statements accomplish nothing of practical value. They are basically feel-good gestures.

If any of the rioting students read these statements -- a highly unlikely occurrence -- it is hard to imagine any of them thinking: "Wow, I really have been acting like a fascist, rioting and shutting down non-left-wing speakers, but now my eyes have been opened and I'm going to stop. Even though my professors have taught me that every conservative is a sexist racist xenophobic Islamophobic hatemonger, next time one of these despicable human beings comes to campus, I will silently wait for them to finish talking and then civilly ask challenging questions."

Thanks to left-wing indoctrination that begins in elementary school, most American students do not enter college as supporters of free speech. As reported in The New York Times on Feb. 7, 2017, a Knight Foundation survey found that only 45 percent of students "support that right when the speech in question is offensive to others and made in public."

If any professors want to do something truly effective, they should form a circle around a hall in which a conservative is scheduled to speak, with each of them holding up a sign identifying themselves as a professor: "I am (name), professor of (department)."

If just 1 percent of the professors on campus -- that would mean just 43 faculty members at a place like UCLA -- were to stand in front of the building in which a conservative was to speak, that might actually have an impact. If they were then attacked by left-wing thugs, other faculty members would be forced to take a position.

But it won't happen. It won't because the university is a particularly cowardly place. And it has been so for many decades. In the 1970s, when I was a graduate student at Columbia University, left-wing students took over classrooms and administration offices. But I recall no faculty members objecting; and the college presidents and deans, were, if possible, even more craven.

Ann Coulter was scheduled to speak this week at the University of California, Berkeley. Last week, the university announced it was canceling her speech, providing the usual excuse that it couldn't guarantee her safety, or others'. This excuse is as phony as it is cowardly. Berkeley and other universities know well that there is a way to ensure safety. They can do so in precisely the same way every other institution in a civilized society ensures citizens' safety: by calling in sufficient police to protect the innocent and arrest the violent. But college presidents don't do that sort of thing -- not at Berkeley, or Yale University, or Middlebury College, or just about anywhere else. They don't want to tick off their clients (students), their faculty, leftist activist groups or the liberal media.

Under pressure, Berkeley's cowardly administration rescinded its cancellation and rescheduled Coulter's speech during the daytime during pre-finals week, when there are no classes and many students are not on campus. Coulter has rejected these changes and vowed to speak on the originally scheduled date.

So, next time you read a statement by some professors -- virtually all of whom, remember, have been silent for decades -- on behalf of allowing opinions other than their own to be expressed on their campuses, take it with a large grain of salt. It's primarily because some alumni are finally withholding funds from their closed-minded alma maters, or because the students they have produced have become so violent even the mainstream media can't ignore it.

Until they line up to safeguard people like Ann Coulter and stop teaching their students that conservatives are deplorable human beings, their open letters aren't worth the printer toner that prints them.

[Carl Vehse]

Cut off all federal research funds and student loans to public universities with traitorous administrations that do not allow conservatives to speak.

[wastoute]

Way,way too late. When you have college perfessers (of ethics, no less) braining folks with steel blocks it is too late for rational responses.

[wbarmy]

But college presidents don't do that sort of thing -- not at Berkeley, or Yale University, or Middlebury College, or just about anywhere else.

Really? Try doing that at Liberty University. But most people would say that Liberty is different and that the other universities cannot be held to the same standard.

That is true, since the other universities do not have any standard to measure by.

[Kaslin]

excellent point.

[SMARTY]

“...it’s a little hard to believe that many of those who did sign are sincere...”

That is certainly an understatement. In fact, if any of these ‘professors’ are motivated by a sincere regard for equity.... ask him/her WHEN ‘concern for the rights of others’ fell off their radar and … conversely, WHEN did they remember it!!!

Pardon me, but I work at a university and there is almost NO SUCH THING as a broad minded professor. Most of them have a rabidly single-minded and VERY vocal Liberalism, which no one dares to challenge. Their mentality is laughably frozen in 1962... I say ‘laughable’ and it’s anything BUT, when you consider the damage they do!

One of them (and I was surprised) made a Conservative observation to me. It stunned me because, though no one was around, he looked left and right over each shoulder before he whispered it to me.

That is pathetic and truly frightening!

[Cen-Tejas]

OR, cut half just on the General Principle that they richly deserve it for a multitude of reasons and our federal government is BROKE.

[Jumper]

So you might say this statement is a defense of the majority by the “remaining” virtue of the few? I know this is not your point, but society has changed with the leftest student indoctrination over the past 10-years, coupled with the media and DNC. While it is still cool to like Bernie, the children socialists grow up to die failures with their beloved socialism. If our colleges and K-12 systems taught comparative studies courses on history of nations, or even if the media were honest about today’s NK or Venezuela the love for Stalin and Mao’s ideology would not compete with the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.

[Da Coyote]

Beginning to have contempt for universities?

Beginning?

Bwahahahahaha!

It it ain’t STEM, it ain’t sh*t.

And Climate “Science” is the telltale crack in STEM.

[wbarmy]

the love for Stalin and Mao’s ideology would not compete with the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy

Oh, I agree. People always love it when told someone else will produce and they would get. From the very beginning of this nation when in 1620 the pilgrims tried a communist-collective style farming community. The idea died within 3 years and they changed it to plots of land given to each member of the community to do with as they please. Within a year they had more food than they knew what to do with. But a whole lot of those motivated pilgrims, Christian idealists, were willing to sit on their butt and let someone else grow the food.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1285981/posts

[Liz]

It is entirely possible that institutions depriving conservatives of their civil rights (and those harboring academics making death threats), may have committed federal offenses, including, but not limited to:

<><> Title 18 U.S.C. §1341, Mail Fraud, 18 U.S.C.§1001, Presenting a False Document to an Agent of the US Government for funding (may involve several felonies and could include forgery);

<><> 18 U.S.C.§1027 False statements and concealment of facts in relation to funding documents required by ERISA enacted 1974 and other possible offenses including civil and/or criminal RICO violations.

<><> 18 U.S.C. §§1961-68 (RICO Act)18 U.S.C. §1001 (making false Statements to Agents of the US Government regarding federal funding),

<><> 18 U.S.C. §241(Conspiracies Against Civil Rights). Violation of Civil Rights under Color of law and conspiracy. Conspiring with others to violate conservative students’ 4th amendment rights.

<><> Possibly full investigations centering on RICO conspiracies under 18 U.S.C. §1962(c) could be warranted because (1) the persons (2) were employed by or associated with a federally funded enterprise (3) that engaged in or affected interstate commerce and that (4) the persons operated or managed the enterprise (5) through a “pattern” (6) of racketeering activity, and (7) the taxpayers were injured by reason of the “pattern” of racketeering activity.

<><> Alleged Offenses could include Violation of Rights – which prohibits in relevant part, “two or more persons (from conspiring) to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District

<><> Title 18 U.S.C. §2 41 – Conspiracy Against Constitutional mandates in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of having so exercised the same . . .” See, 18 U.S.C. §241.

=========================================

Taxpayers demand the following agencies commence investigations of liberal campus activities at once:

<><> FBI — Wire Fraud Division

<><> IRS-Fraud Unit

<><> Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General,

<><> Department of Commerce’s Office of Inspector General.

<><> DOJ’s Criminal Division— Public Integrity Section

<><> DOJ Criminal Division—Organized Crime and Gang Section.

============================================

ACTION NOW-—Contact your Representative and Senators Capitol Switchboard 1-866-220-0044

TALKING POINTS: sever all public funds, including federal funds, until these institutions cease their discriminatory activity against conservatives and conservative students.

[CMSMC]

You’re right. It all goes back to LBJ when he allowed education majors to avoid the draft. All the left wing loons who could afford it switched to education and then stayed in the system. Have a cousin who did... when they eliminated the exemption, he got married, and spent the rest of his life in academia. Have to force myself to not show contempt around the family.

[minnesota_bound]

The school and the mayor are behind the protests. The students are being used and being paid in some instances as has been found in other protest. The solution is to fire all and kick out the students.

[Bodega]

Yes, cut off all federal and state funding at universities promoting sedition and treason.

Yes. Do it.

[tillacum]

I agree. Money speaks louder than anyone with a bull horn. Cut off the money, and we’ll see profs trying to speak and act conservative. Cut off federal money and we’ll see the little marxists drop out of school.

University and college administrators have always been known for their weak spins and agreeable whatever the dissenters are protesting about.

[Seeing More Clearly Now]

So you might say this statement is a defense of the majority by the “remaining” virtue of the few? I know this is not your point, but society has changed with the leftest student indoctrination over the past 10-years, coupled with the media and DNC. . . .

The really big time systematic, long term indoctrination began with focused intent not 10 years ago, but close to 50 years ago on the college campuses. One can trace the infiltration much further back than that, too, many decades back from there.

The trumped up riots on the college campuses in 1968 were part of that, a jump start, so to speak, of the Marxist plan for armed revolution in the U.S., then settling for a few decades for unarmed infiltration from within.

Now they’re back to inciting thought and speech control and armed riots. Deep thinking or respect for fairness and logic or respect for differences of opinion was never their skill or forte.

[Jumper]

You are very correct. How to deal with it when even Hillary cannot be brought to justice before a court is just as much of the problem. We now have people at every level of society protected from the law and they are above it too. As long as regular folks have jobs they tend to be law abiding...