May 28^th

Thomas Sowell’s column today is suffused with pity for the poor college graduates exposed only to liberal opinions. To counter this outrage he provides a reading list to right the imbalance. High on this list is Ann Coulter and very high is Walter E. Williams. Then there are quarterly publications like “City Journal” and “Hoover Digest.” Sowell wants to slant student reading toward the right presumably to counter the awful biases of left-leaning universities; topics like “Social Security as a Ponzi Scheme” are hardly neutral nor is anything produced by Ann Coulter.

Sowell apparently does not understand that many campuses are also dominated by the right wing in this country. Liberty University where many Republican presidential aspirants have announced their candidacy has eliminated its Democratic Club; its values were just not congenial to the purpose to the university. Perhaps Sowell can tell us which of these awful major universities, if any, have thrown their Republican Clubs off campus.

Then we have Biola University: This interesting institution admits only evangelical Christians. I would hazard a guess that any course in comparative religion has a very nervous professor. They do have a “Democrat” Club and a recent campus debate centered around the question of whether or not you could be a Christian and a Democrat. This debate is hard to imagine but it is the truth. Many arguments were advanced against the notion that it was possible to be both.

Other four year colleges and universities also have requirements that students submit a “Profession of faith statement” to gain admission. Mr. Sowell doesn’t seem to think that any of these schools need to have their students’ broaden their social/political point of view. If one seriously believes that Christians cannot subscribe to the principles of the Democratic Party then that person knows nothing about Christianity and nothing about the Democratic Party.

Finally, Sowell says nothing about Gunnar Myrdal the Nobel Prize winning economist; it is hard to believe that Sowell is not familiar with the author of “An American Dilemma” which SCOTUS cited in their destruction of the separate but equal myth. Myrdal shared the prize with Hayek a right wing type, so Sowell surely knows about him. Myrdal is responsible for the “Swedish Miracle,” a buoyant economy with enormously beneficial social programs, high marginal tax rates and low unemployment. Sowell on the other hand seems to welcome unfettered capitalism, get as much money as you can as fast as you can and blame the poorest twenty percent for their poverty. That’s Christian?