During the 1990s, many upscale universities had students who said "Enough!" and established newspapers to advocate for academic freedom, mock the Mickey Mouse courses taught on campus, and generally play the role of watchdog. Needless to say, those newspapers were not welcomed by administrators or the PC thugs who "police" what happens on campus. Blessed by administrators who looked the other way, the thugs stole newspapers en masse and otherwise bullied these reporters in a style worthy of the Ku Klux Klan.
Flash forward ten years: the Internet offers students, alumni and faculty the opportunity to watch and report on the crazy shenanigans of those in power and those who feel empowered to act as foot soldiers in the "long march through the institutions" that has done so much damage to academic rigor and freedom.
(Disclosure: I have my own blog, FreeU, focusing primarily on Illinois issues).
Here I'd like to profile one excellent student blog: ClaremontConservative.com
(The blogroll includes many alternative blogs by students, alumni, community members from Left to Right and "just for fun").
Issues of interest to academic readers include the following:
*Thought reformThe military bloggers have a central directory; perhaps it is time to gather a EDUblogging directory? Meanwhile, search and you will find someone blogging about your campus, whether the pooh-bahs approve or not.
*Expulsion for the "wrong" views
*Racial segregation promoted by the administration.
Postscript: Alumni need to get into the act. They have nothing to fear--and administrators sometimes listen to them. Using the web, I got alumni at my alma mater to pressure the administration and get rid of a mandatory "white guilt" seminar for freshmen.
3 comments:
The student expulsions were over turned by the higher administration and the race retreat was sponsored by a student group, not the administration.
Ah, yes, but how many conservative student groups hold things like "affirmative action bake sales" only to have the administration look the other way when thugs destroy them.
Or when those who disagree with an alternative newspaper steal them en masse (not because they are Abbie Hoffman but because they don't like the message)? Shadow University, by FIRE cofounders, documents all this and more.
Bad things happen? OMG! I was a student activist and I had to deal with right-wing thugs destroying fliers and calling me with death threats (no caller ID back then). I also had to argue against left-wing friends who wanted to disrupt conservative speakers. We as faculty today should stress to students how to engage in political debate and struggle. We should not pretend all the problems are on one side or the other.
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