Opening a window on closed campus minds
A new documentary shows how repressive university political correctness
has
become
Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Early 20th-century American novelist Thomas Wolfe, the subject of my grad
thesis, is most famously remembered for his book, or rather its title, You
Can't Go Home Again. The phrase entered the language as shorthand for the
disappointment one feels in later life when revisiting the greatly changed
scene of one's youthful bliss.
My youthful bliss was studying the great writers of Western civilization
at
the University of Toronto. I didn't know then I was witnessing a
"melancholy, long, withdrawing roar": the outgoing tide of a classically
liberal education.
I don't suffer from the "in-my-day" syndrome, whereby the institutions of
one's formative years seem in retrospect superior to those of the next
generations. I haven't lost my objectivity; academia has. In my day, the
university's mission was to open minds; today it is to close them.
For proof, see Indoctrinate U, a documentary film that explores the
reflexive suppression on campus of the ideologically non-compliant in its
midst. The Canadian premiere takes place in Ottawa on Feb. 18 at 7 p.m.,
at
the National Archives of the Library of Canada. (Or order Indoctrinate U
at
https://store.indoctrinate-u.com/)
The film focuses on American campuses, but leftist triumphalism knows no
national borders. The pattern of political groupthink captured by
filmmaker
Evan Coyne Maloney could be replicated at any number of similarly
left-leaning Canadian universities.
Building on testimonials by students, faculty, alumni and critical
commentators, including attempts to interview campus administrators (not a
single one co-operated; several were filmed calling the police to eject
Maloney from campus), the young filmmaker mounts a compelling indictment
of--in George Orwell's words -- the "smelly little orthodoxies"
suffocating
intellectual diversity on campus.
Indoctrinate U exposes the full gamut of the PC scourge: irritations that
grate, like speech codes forbidding words that may lead to "a loss of
self-esteem" (Colby College) or a ban on gender-specific partner terms
such
as "boyfriend" (University of West Virginia); and cuts that sting: on
campus after campus, conservative student journalists are reviled, their
dailies trashed en masse. "The only good Republican is a dead Republican!"
screams one offended student when offered a conservative broadsheet.
Diversity of opinion is squashed, sometimes with savagely hypocritical
zeal. At Indian River Community College in Florida, the Christian
Fellowship was refused the right to show The Passion of the Christ because
it was "R rated," but a play called F--king for Jesus was permitted,
featuring a girl masturbating before a picture of Jesus.
The most sympathetic victims are conservative faculty, because academia is
their life, not a way station. At California Polytechnic, "outed"
professor
Laura Freberg was reproached by her colleagues, "We never would have hired
you if we'd known you were Republican." In spite of her impeccable
academic
credentials and stellar teaching ratings, Freberg was removed as
department
chair, and a swastika burned on her lawn.
Just when you think he has plumbed its depths, Maloney finds more
sickening
examples of Western self-loathing. Kuwaiti student Ahmad al-Qloushi dared
to write a pro-American essay at Foothill College. He was threatened with
the loss of his visa by a professor; and administrators subsequently
authorized the distribution of a third-party flyer calling him "as bad as
Hitler" and likening him to a suicide bomber.
These examples seem sensational, but the film's tone is calm and
objective.
Maloney did not appear to have cherrypicked his witnesses. He toured
campuses big and small, famous and humble, across the nation. It was the
same "velvet-totalitarian" story everywhere. His interview subjects
reflect
on the problem soberly and articulately, and every case included was
vetted
for veracity and moral clarity.
The camera does not lie: Former centres of learning and intellectual
diversity are now indoctrination sites systemically dedicated to the
abbreviation of human curiosity and the alienation of students from
Western
civilization.
I often wonder where in Canada I could "go home again" in the 21st
century.
I have one simple, symbolic criterion: a learning centre that would still
hold up for critical admiration the greatness in the writings of Thomas
Wolfe, a hard-drinking, aggressively heterosexual white male from a racist
background, whose creative inspiration was Western civilization's literary
treasure trove and whose overriding theme was his passion for America.
That's a tall order nowadays. I only know one three-year arts program in
Canada today I'd be glad to call my intellectual home, and I fear for its
survival.
bkay@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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