Incubating conservatives on campus

THREE WEEKS after the election, liberals are still scratching their heads, wondering where all these George W. Bush supporters came from. The nation surely couldn’t be this conservative, they gasp. I’ve got bad news for liberals: There are incubators of conservatism not only in the heartland and in the Bible Belt, but in elite blue-state universities, the very institutions Lefties have dominated since they signed up for Ph.Ds to dodge the draft in the 1960s.

I am delighted to report that on college campuses on both coasts (and of course in “flyover country”), there are student-run independent newspapers that are battling the America-hating political scientists, Marxist economics professors, deconstructionist English departments, feminazis, pot-smoking philosophers, Birkenstocked war protestors, and the whole migraine headache that is the Campus Left. These conservative student newspapers are veritable hatcheries for the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that helped get Bush reelected. Send them more money!

Mega celebrities such as Ann Coulter (who began her writing career at the Cornell Review) and intellectual luminaries such as Dinesh D’Souza (former editor of the Dartmouth Review) are among those who galvanize the right these days. Practically all the writers at National Review, and a few from The Weekly Standard, started as conservative writers on college campuses. Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and other fair and balanced news institutions employ former student editors of conservative newspapers.

I myself was hatched in one of these conservative newspapers, the Binghamton Review. By Thanksgiving of my freshman year, I couldn’t stomach the political correctness that poisoned the public college in upstate New York that I had chosen. I hung up my guitar and motorcycle jacket, put down the hackey sack, and picked up the pen.

If it hadn’t been for the Collegiate Network, a national organization that reached out to conservative students with grants and advice, there might not have been a Binghamton Review to keep me sane in college. The CN helped fund the production of most of these conservative newspapers, offered training seminars to student editors, and monitored — but never censored — the content of the publications. It introduced the conservative kids at Binghamton to the conservative kids at Dartmouth to the conservative kids at University of Michigan, and so on. We group-hugged, shared war stories, and strategized. (Those of us over 21 might have enjoyed one or two hops beverages during the process.)

My real college education took place in the conservative student newspaper office, and my benefactor was, without a doubt, the CN, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a big dinner in Washington on Dec. 2. I can’t wait to see all my old friends again, and make some new ones.

Today the Collegiate Network supports 86 student newspapers across the country, wonderful little hatcheries of right-thinking college students, who in their own unique way contributed to the magnificent defeat of liberalism in this year’s election.

Even in New England, at colleges with hopelessly liberal reputations, these bastions of sanity battle away. Among them are the Boston College Observer, Crossroads (also Boston College), the Sam Adams Review (Boston University), the Harvard Salient, the Fenwick Review (Holy Cross), the Primary Source (Tufts), the Concord Bridge (Brandeis), the Bowdoin Patriot, and the Brown Spectator.

If you’re home from college for Thanksgiving and wondering how you can bear to go back to a place that blames 9/11 on imperialistic U.S. foreign policy, poverty on “tax cuts for the rich,” and violence on “prejudice, ignorance, and economic injustice” take heart. Join the conservative student newspaper on your campus. If there’s not one already, contact the Collegiate Network (www.isi.org/cn) and ask them to help you start one.

Remember, reading is fun, but writing is more fun. And writing stuff that annoys the humorless Campus Left is the most fun of all.

Is this what you would call "nut-jobish"? It seem reasonable to me.

Cornell's Tribute to the Late Jim Crow
Self-segregating minorities turn back the clock on racial progress

By Nick Kavanagh

Jim Crow is alive and well. However, he thrives not in the Deep South where you might expect, but hidden behind the ivy-covered walls of Cornell University’s race based program houses: Ujamaa Residential College, the unpronounceable Akwe:kon, and the Latino Living Center (LLC). Ujamaa was built to house Cornell’s black students, Akwe:kon serves as the university’s American Indian dormitory, and the LLC houses Cornell’s Latino population.

Now, I know what you’re probably asking yourself; what kind of cross-burning white-robed racists imposed these quasi-plantation style living arrangements? Well, as surprising as it may seem, it was Cornell’s own minority students who fought for the establishment of these dormitories.

The university’s first racial program house was erected in 1972 as a result of the 1969 armed takeover of Cornell’s student union building by nearly a hundred black nationalists. These black militants, most of whom were members of the Afro-American Society (later renamed the Black Liberation Front), usurped control of the building with violent force, using knives and baseball bats to expel university staff and students.

After a few feeble attempts by university officials to pacify the situation, campus police were ordered to stand down. Not long after, the university surrendered to the demands of these insurgents and subsequently set the stage for the establishment of the Ujaama Residential College. This, of course, began Cornell’s more than thirty-year-long tradition of treating violent dissidents with the most appropriate of consequences: giving in to their demands.

This event marked a dark chapter in Cornell’s history because it established the precedent that violence is an acceptable means for negotiating grievances. This historical lesson was learned well by Latino students who, in 1993, savagely assaulted police officers and forcefully took control of Day Hall to obtain their own living facility. By refusing to stand up to these minorities, the university paved the way for the current state of de facto segregation on Cornell’s campus.

This university loves to pride itself on its racial and ethnic diversity, proudly proclaiming Cornell to be the most diverse college within the Ivy League. But speaking as a student of this institution, I can assure you that that is not the case. Most minority students only associate with their fellow minorities, leaving the campus in a state that would make “Bull” Conner smile.

Looking back at my freshman year, I remember being closest to those friends who lived in my dorm hall. It’s not that I disliked those students who lived outside of the 5-6 side of Clara Dickson, but the people who lived near me were my first friends and the ones with which I spent the most time.

Therefore, by allowing students of a particular race to self-segregate, the university is assuring that those students will spend most of their time with people of their same race. This is why the dining halls are just as segregated as the dormitories.

Another problem with these program houses is that they serve as indoctrination centers where impressionable students are brainwashed into believing that mainstream America is racist and that they have little hope of succeeding in it. These program houses preach anti-Western sentiments and serve as a pulpit for a slew of disgruntled professors—most of whom are from the Africana Studies Department—who aim to recruit the next generation of Black Panthers. In addition, their demagogic indictments heighten racial tensions and inflame the already horrific racial problem on campus.

It is time for Cornell University to put an end to these Jim Crow era dormitories and live up to its promise of a racially diverse campus. However, the university has done very little to this end.

Campus conservatives have borne the brunt of this battle, slowly gaining ground against an overwhelming opposition. They have achieved this through newspaper articles, campus debates, and sheer force of will.

However, the radical left has done all they can to silence conservatives, even going so far as to participate in organized Nazi-style newspaper burnings. During campus debates where conservatives go to legitimately evince their positions, they are often attacked by militant leftists whose idea of rational discourse involves screaming “racist” at anyone who disagrees with their anachronistic vision of racial harmony.

In the end, if you cut through all their left-wing rhetoric about diversity and equality at Cornell, you’ll find it’s all a farce. A majority of Cornell’s minority students are simply demanding “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.” These students have turned back the clock on the progress of their ancestors by demanding separate living facilities.

I guess the only question remaining is why did they stop with the dorms? There are plenty of bathrooms and drinking fountains left to go.

Nick Kavanagh is a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences and the managing editor of The Cornell American. He can be reached at nsk23@cornell.edu.

http://www.cornellamerican.com/October%2525202004--program%20houses.html

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