May 31^st

Today the local paper published an obviously political column without attribution; it was obviously right wing because it was critical, very critical of universities which protected their students from contrary opinions. What the author clearly meant was protected them from right wing opinions. The column did not have an author’s name attached so the author was a mystery, but not for long. Columnists have their own styles and their own vocabularies. At one point this author writes the following sentence, “Fortunately, a saving clerisy, a vanguard composed of the understanding few, know where history is going and how to help it get there.” Wow! A saving clerisy; who would have thought? I looked it up and it is rare; about 1 in 180,000 words; a synonym for it is intelligentsia. Who would write “clerisy” in a column if intelligentsia would do as well? Can you say George Will? Yes, George did it.

His thesis was that major universities protect their students from disagreeable ideas by limiting speakers and controlling certain topics. The complaints about this bias began more than sixty years ago when William F. Buckley wrote “God and Man at Yale:” Buckley’s thesis then was that Yale’s faculty was a bunch of Godless communists inflicting their views on their poor students. The book made Buckley’s reputation as a conservative but not everyone bought his pot of message. McGeorge Bundy was also a recent Yale graduate and he savaged the book’s exaggerations in an Atlantic article that same year. Bundy said that Buckley’s book was, “dishonest in the use of facts, false in its theory and a discredit to its author and the writer of its introduction.” The right wing was happy to buy it anyway and has reverenced Buckley ever since.

The problem Will has is that his complaints about academic bias are all one-sided. He is gloriously unconcerned about the bias shown by conservative institutions erecting walls around their students’ beliefs. Liberty University has thrown their Democratic student club off campus. Is Will concerned? He mentions primarily Ivy League schools. I guess the rest are beneath him. Many fundamentalist Christian schools demand that a prospective student describe their relationship with Jesus Christ as a condition of admission.  All faculty members must sign a profession of faith instrument as a condition of employment. Biola University has a debate about whether a Christian can be a Democrat. Rules from Leviticus are cited as evidence that Christians would have a problem here. (That’s right, Leviticus! Can you imagine using Leviticus to determine the rules for Christians?) Will and the protectors of free speech groups he references have no difficulties with any of this. If they have it is never mentioned.

Bob Jones University that professes to be Christian declares that the Catholic Pope is the anti-Christ and that Catholicism is a cult. I guess for Mr. Will this is not nearly as scandalous as the university cancelling the invitation of a prochoice speaker. Not to worry George, that invitation will never be offered.