Posted on 06/08/2003 6:12:14 PM PDT by Justin714
I consider myself an open-minded Christian conservative – I do tolerate the presentation of liberalism in various forms. But, like most of society, I value limitations on the more vulgar and disgusting expressions of ideology, Left or Right. For example, I don’t think that certain activities going on at some of America’s college campuses are very appropriate, and I don’t think taxpayers should be asked to pay for them.
Having recently completed the task of college application and admissions, I can tell you the names of a few schools I would never attend. Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington is one such school.
I first visited Evergreen when I was in the seventh grade for a junior high orchestra festival. I remember carrying my violin past the Evergreen art gallery on the way to the auditorium. The theme of the month in the art gallery was “Feces Art.” Toilets, model excrement, and quadruple X pornography adorned the walls and floors of the public gallery.
Not long after my horrifying experience on the Evergreen campus, convicted death row cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal was invited to deliver the commencement address at the Evergreen graduation. Interestingly, every year Evergreen has two graduation ceremonies – one normal graduation and one just for minority students that is sponsored by the campus Multicultural Center.
On a more recent trip to Evergreen, I attended a seminar the same day as the memorial service for Rachel Corrie, an Evergreen student killed after being run over by an Israeli military bulldozer as she stood in its path. The day I was there I witnessed a customary congregation of anti-war protesters, posters heralding the upcoming Evergreen Sex Conference, and “clean” waterless toilets.
A course description for an Evergreen history class called “Dissent, Injustice and the Making of America” says that the founding fathers built America on “explicit inequality.” “Inherently Unequal” aligns the conservative movement of the 1950s with racism. Another course called “Engaging Cuba: Uncommon Approaches to the Common Good” glorifies communist Cuba for its successes in education, health care, and agricultural production.
A course called “Queer Looks, Queer Books” trains students to “emerge with a strong understanding of contemporary political advocacy on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender, and queer persons.” One of Evergreen’s many Left wing student organizations is the Queer Alliance, a group listed on the Evergreen State College website as considerate of at least twelve different sexual orientations, genders, or other lifestyles. Included are prostitutes, rubber fetishists, pansexuals, polyamorists, genderqueers, and the typical GLBT. Fortunately, bestiality and incest are off the list for now.
I know there are those who may love crap art, cop killers, and rubber. But don’t ask the rest of us to pay for it.
For those who wish to label me as intolerant of ideas other than my own, let me make clear that I do not believe Evergreen should be occupied by the National Guard and conquered for the sake of decency. Yet despite the controversial nature of activities at Evergreen State College, it remains one of Washington state’s six taxpayer funded state baccalaureate institutions.
Legislators in Washington should offer two choices to Evergreen. Choice A: clean up your act and remain a state institution. Choice B: continue to exalt porn, piercing, and perversion and lose the state funding status. If you ask me, I would prefer to see Evergreen privatized.
Some variation of the Evergreen story is going on at too many college and university campuses around the country. In a number of cases, taxpayers have been covering their tab without any compelling reason to do so for years. Its time for citizens to demand a major revolution in higher education funding that does away with the use of taxpayer money for moral relativism in its most disgusting forms. By Hans Zeiger
Hans Zeiger, 18, is a Seattle Times columnist, chairman of Washington Young Americans for Freedom, and spokesman for the Scout Honor Coalition. He may be contacted at hanszeiger@yahoo.com
This is what I found amazing. The Seattle Times is, IMHO, simply the most fundamentally dishonest, tendentious and tedious newspaper I have ever encountered. Even her rival the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, for all its left-liberal "leaning" faults, comes across to me as a more (note the relative) honest rag tham the Seattle Times.
Hnag in there, Hans -- there is life after the Seattle Times.
Send your kids to Michigan Technological University.
I attended a small college up in Vermont in the 80's, and it was 'Pat Robertson University' compared to this!
I'm amazed how quickly 'Higher Education' has been appropriated by the looney-bin.
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