From Jason Mattera, Young American Foundation’s spokesman, a list of ridiculous items from 2008 in academia. (Some items edited for brevity. Unabridged version here.)
- The free speech “zone.” Yuba College in California restricts free speech to an hour each Tuesday and Thursday in the school theater. Campus police threatened to arrest a student handing out gospel tracts if he didn’t comply with the “free speech zone.”
- Transgendered activists in, pro-life speakers out. Liberal administrators at the University of St. Thomas, a Catholic institution in Minnesota, censored the appearance of prominent pro-life speaker Star Parker because campus officials felt “uncomfortable” and “disturbed” by previous conservative speakers at the school.
- A new meaning of Duty, Honor, Country. Leftist instructor Judy Rosenstein of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership hosted a transgendered speaker in class. ”Allyson” Robinson, a West Point grad himself, switched genders after leaving the Army. Upon returning to West Point as a guest speaker, “Mrs.” Robinson found it “worrisome” that the student composition seemed more socially conservative than when “she” was a student. Perhaps West Point’s leadership should confine speaker invitations to those whose behavior, if emulated, would not get cadets booted from the academy, much less the Army.
- 2008’s stolen election? Columbia University recently polled students on whether or not they would support the return of the Navy’s ROTC to campus after a 40-year absence. Columbia claimed the referendum lost by 39 votes. Election fraud abounded.
- When English class turns gay. Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois required this book as part of an Advanced Placement English literature course: Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes. The book is laced with graphic sexual content, such as one character pleading with his sexual partner to “infect” and “make [him] bleed.”
- You can’t pray here! At the College of Alameda in California, Kandy Kyriacou visited her professor to give her a Christmas gift. When Kandy saw that her teacher was ill, she offered to pray for her. The professor agreed. That’s when Derek Piazza, another professor, walked in and saw that a prayer was occurring on college premises. Kandy received a retroactive “intent to suspend” letter from the administration, claiming that she was guilty of “disruptive or insulting behavior” and “persistent abuse of” college employees. Further infractions would result in expulsion, the letter read.
- Hey, that feather cap is racist. For decades, kindergarten classes in the Claremont district of California have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as Pilgrims and Indians and sharing a feast. In a letter to her daughter’s elementary school teacher, Michelle Raheja, an English professor at University of California-Riverside, fumed that such activities are “dehumanizing” and serve as a “racist stereotype.” The school district capitulated, and now the toddlers are prohibited from wearing “their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests.”
- Ho, ho, forgetaboutit! Florida Gulf Coast University’s president, Wilson Bradshaw, sent holiday festivities packing because he didn’t know “how best to observe the season in ways that honor and respect all traditions.” Christmas merriment was replaced with an “ugly sweater competition.” Mr. Bradshaw ultimately had a change of heart, after his embarrassing attempt at censorship became public.
- Leftist factions compete on who is more multicultural. When eco-fanatics at UC-Berkeley illegally saddled themselves in trees on campus and hurled urine and feces to block the construction of a multi-million dollar athletic facility, probably the last thing they expected was to be called racists. Yet the school’s chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, labeled them just that, saying the environmental radicals were impeding the completion of a new athletic facility designed to attract “minority student athletes.” Puzzled that the chancellor played the race card on them, the tree dwellers argued that “three of the final four” protestors were “Latinos” and the very first hijacker was a “Native American.” One of the Berkeley zealots, who goes by the name “Running Wolf,” said that Mr. Birgenaeau attempted “to pit colored against colored.”
- Who knew? Universal health care is actually a non partisan issue. Administrators at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, Minnesota-the nation’s largest Catholic women’s college-unexpectedly blocked young conservatives on campus from hosting Bay Buchanan, a popular conservative commentator and U.S. Treasurer under President Reagan. College officials deemed Ms. Buchanan’s remarks on “Feminism and the 2008 Election” too politically charged, citing concerns about the school’s tax status. Those same “concerns,” mind you, didn’t prohibit the school from sponsoring programs that push for universal healthcare and minimum wage increases or hosting Frank Kroncke, an anti-war radical who is reliving the Vietnam days.
Hat tip Ed Morrissey.
