Posted on 06/18/2020 8:11:07 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The nationally recognized liberal arts institution Hillsdale College has a history of defying political pressure in order to uphold what is good and true. Its recent refusal to give in to the demands of those who think a public statement is necessary to fight social injustice is just the most recent example.
Some of the college’s alumni publicly pushed their alma mater to comment on the recent controversies regarding the death of George Floyd and the ensuing protests and riots. When a petition began circulating calling on the college to release a statement, arguing that its “silence” supported violence, the college responded in an open letter.
“The College is pressed to speak. It is told that saying what it always has said is insufficient. Instead, it must decry racism and the mistreatment of Black Americans in particular. This, however, is precisely what the College has always said,” the letter says.
The letter signed by the college’s administration argues the institution’s steadfast devotion to fighting for the truth that all men are created equal is proven by its actions rather than empty words. Hillsdale was founded by abolitionists in 1844 and has, since its inception, pledged to educate all students, “irrespective of nation, color, or sex.” Such strong anti-discrimination practices were viewed as fiercely radical at the time, and made Hillsdale among the first in the nation to grant education to black Americans and the second in the nation to provide four-year liberal arts degrees to women.
This education produced students who care about the dignity and equality of all people. When the Civil War broke out, a higher percentage of Hillsdale students enlisted to fight for the Union than from any other college. It stood as an anti-slavery symbol during this time, such that the revered abolitionist Frederick Douglass came to deliver a speech on campus.
“The College founding is a statement — as is each reiteration and reminder of its meaning and necessity. The curriculum is a statement, especially in its faithful presentation of the College’s founding mission. Teaching is a statement, especially as it takes up — with vigor — the evils we are alleged to ignore, evils like murder, brutality, injustice, destruction of person or property, and passionate irrationality” the administration writes in the letter. “… And all of these statements are acts, deeds that speak, undertaken and perpetuated now, every day, all the time. Everything the College does, though its work is not that of an activist or agitator, is for the moral and intellectual uplift of all.”
Businesses who publish a few sentences on their website declaring their support for a cause do little substantive work for that cause. Nearly every U.S. company has printed these statements in fear of retaliation from certain groups and an effort to protect themselves and their future earnings. Hillsdale addressed this in the letter: “But the fact that very real racial problems are now being cynically exploited for profit, gain, and public favor by some organizations and people is impossible to overlook.”
Hillsdale doesn’t need to string a few words together to show its dedication to equality. Its actions speak for itself.
The college’s commitment to its principles has never wavered. In the 1970s when the federal government attempted to require the college to discriminate against potential students based on their race, the college refused. This meant the loss of all federal funding to its students as well as the institution. Hillsdale has instead generated private funding to continue its mission.
The college operates today as it always has, educating another generation of students to aspire to the great principles animating the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. Statues of Douglass and Abraham Lincoln adorn campus as students study, reminding them of the virtues the college upholds.
While other companies are busy regurgitating statements capturing whatever ideas are trendy at the time, Hillsdale is busy fulfilling the same mission they set forth 176 years ago.
d (3) the current ongoing progressive dumpster fire that originally began in the late 1800s.@@@@@
This particular dumpster fire started with the backlash among black Americans in the south when the Union army of occupation left the south. The political vacuum erased the gains of black Americans in the south and led to the Jim Crow laws as well as poll taxes etc.
As black leaders such as W.E.B. Dubois (founder of the NAACP) left the fold of black society under leaders like George Wahington Carver in search of a quick solution to racial prejudice in America, Dubois became enamored of Russian communist society. His dream was for an uprising and overthrow of a broken system built on platitudes that could only be made right (in his lifetime) by violent revolutionary change.
This is key to understanding modern progressives. Leaders like MLK looked and dreamed of a day when all people in America looked at each other as children of God to be judged by the content of their character. He realized this would take time, perhaps generations (remember all baby boomers grew up into their teens face to face with racial segregation).
Martin Luther King knew there would be battles to be fought until his grandchildren would be color blind among a society of free men and women who would see the words of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution come to full fruition. Dubois had become an atheist (for he could not justify how a Holy God could allow this evil of racial discrimination) which led him to seek radical change now for there was no future past ones last breath.
Thus we see the dilemma of the progressives, if this life is all there is and the evils of the world (as I see it) are not solved then ones life is a waste and lived in vain. Contrast this with a Christian Worldview that understands this world is not perfect and people will inherently act in their own self interests apart from the leadership and guidance of Almighty God.
The Christian, think MLK, realizes that people can change but only as they see a better way of life lived out before them by a people that are not weary in well doing, that love their neighbors as themselves, that realize the same Jesus that died for me also died for you. If God loves me, He loves you, and it’s OK if we don’t look alike.
The best example of this is to see toddlers in the waiting rooms, play grounds, preschools play together in happy exultation. Celebrating the finding of another person their size going through the same challenges of walking and talking. Hopefully we will continue as a nation to strive to live up to the ideals of our Founding Documents. Our Founders were not perfect, neither are we. If we stay humble and always strive for the best for our nation before God then we will see that we have much more in common than we have to differ about. This is the Melting Pot that is America, the greatest country the Earth has ever seen, and what peoples around the world see as the example to strive to be. Pray for our nation and our leaders.
WWG1WGA!
Editor’s note: The following is a statement from the leaders of Hillsdale College.
Amidst the events of recent weeks, a number of alumni and others have taken up formal and public means to insist that Hillsdale College issue statements concerning these events. The College is charged with negligence — or worse.
It is not the practice of the College to respond to petitions or other instruments meant to gain an object by pressure. The College operates by reasoned deliberation, study, and thought. The following observations, however, may be helpful and pertinent.
The College is pressed to speak. It is told that saying what it always has said is insufficient. Instead, it must decry racism and the mistreatment of Black Americans in particular. This, however, is precisely what the College has always said.
The College is told that invoking the high example of the Civil War or Frederick Douglass is not permitted. Perhaps it is thought that nothing relevant can be learned about justice and equality from the words and actions of great men and women in history. Instead, the College is guilty of the gravest moral failure for not making declarations about … justice and equality.
The College is told that it garners no honor now for its abolitionist past — or that it fails to live up to that past — but instead it must issue statements today. Statements about what? It must issue statements about the brutal and deadly evil of hating other people and/or treating them differently because of the color of their skin. That is, it must issue statements about the very things that moved the abolitionists whom the College has ever invoked.
It is told that failure to issue statements is an erasure, a complicity, an abandonment of principle. The silence of the College is deafening.
The College founding is a statement — as is each reiteration and reminder of its meaning and necessity. The curriculum is a statement, especially in its faithful presentation of the College’s founding mission. Teaching is a statement, especially as it takes up — with vigor — the evils we are alleged to ignore, evils like murder, brutality, injustice, destruction of person or property, and passionate irrationality. Teaching these same things across all the land is a statement, or a thousand statements. Organizing our practical affairs so that we can maintain principles of equity and justice — though the cost is high and sympathy is short — is a statement. Dispensing unparalleled financial help to students who cannot afford even a moderate tuition, is a statement. Helping private and public schools across the country lift their primary and secondary students out of a sea of disadvantages with excellent instruction, curricula, and the civic principles of freedom and equality — without any recompense to the College — is a statement. Postgraduate programs with the express aim of advancing the ideas of human dignity, justice, equality, and the citizen as the source of the government’s power, these are all statements. And all of these statements are acts, deeds that speak, undertaken and perpetuated now, every day, all the time. Everything the College does, though its work is not that of an activist or agitator, is for the moral and intellectual uplift of all.
There may be something deafening in the culture—certainly there are those who cannot hear — but it is not from the silence of the College.
There is a kind of virtue that is cheap. It consists of jumping on cost-free bandwagons of public feeling — perhaps even deeply justified public feeling — and winning approval by espousing the right opinion. No one who wishes the College to issue statements is assumed to be a party to such behavior. But the fact that very real racial problems are now being cynically exploited for profit, gain, and public favor by some organizations and people is impossible to overlook. It is a scandal and a shame that compounds our ills and impedes their correction. Hillsdale College, though far from perfect, will continue to do the work of education in the great principles that are, second only to divine grace, the solution to the grave ills that beset our times.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: As much as we Hillsdale people revel in our uniqueness, America could use a hundred Hillsdales.
Hillsdale College has a nice clean conservative college campus, they also have a few statues they be best to put in a warehouse or basically get them off the campus. I think their is four but I not sure, seems like I remember they are bronze and I think they are life size of Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Margret Thatcher, and I think one other person which I can’t think off, I was born and raised in Hillsdale but I didn’t go to college their and the statues were installed after I left the area etc.
Good for them. I guess when we re-do our will in a couple months they get to stay as a beneficiary.
“Grove City College in PA is another college that takes no federal funds so that it can preserve it’s liberty.”
Absolutely! I was born near there, and we go through a couple times a year. We’ve met some smart, lovely young peope who have attended.
Children start making pretty clear racial distinctions around 8/9 years of age. It has nothing to do with ‘racist culture’ it is a natural part of the brain developing.
I think Bon Jones University is in the same boat, and they turn out some good graduates. Our friend’s kid went there and becane the first woman in her branch of the military do do an awesome thing. Can’t say what ‘cause it could identify her. (Plus she looks cute in her officer’s uniform.) :)
At one time, I was proud to be a graduate of the University of Virginia. Now I am sorry I was not a graduate of Hillsdale College.
When the Civil War broke out, a higher percentage of Hillsdale students enlisted to fight for the Union than from any other college. It stood as an anti-slavery symbol during this time, such that the revered abolitionist Frederick Douglass came to deliver a speech on campus.
Hey, the Confederate soldiers had feet, so did the Nazi soldiers, so anyone with feet is a Confederate Nazi white supremacist!!!
Mark Levin the guy who we can all than for justice John Roberts. Why don’t you sell some some suckers another book about a constitution that doesn’t exist. Mark is like art bell with a my pillow to conservative causes
The heck?
States have no “rights” the way people have rights. They only have the powers that aren’t forbidden to them by the Constitution.
Hillsdale defying corporate Marxism
+1
Long a supporter of Hillsdale College. Mrs. jimfree and I have taken half a dozen free online courses, including brilliant presentations by Victor Davis Hanson. We have attended a few events at the school’s Kirby Center in DC and met President Larry Arnn.
Anyone who knows anything about Hillsdale is familiar with the school’s abolitionist heritage. Those that press about a statement are bullies and phonies.
Please explain? Is Levin a Bush insider?
I would not doubt it. He was a never Trumper and a leopard can’t change his spots.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.