OPINION:
If the campus is an accurate reflection of the rising generation, the nation has frightful prospects. The “kids” are in the streets again, trying to reprise the fun of the ’60s, long before they were born, but the decade that formed many of their professors. They’re demanding the heads of university presidents, professors, even of imaginary ghosts and goblins who threaten a “safe space” where they can exercise the right never to hear a discouraging word, and where the skies are not cloudy all day. Their message to anyone who disagrees is short and sweet: “Shut up!”
The professors who have spent years indoctrinating their classes in how the liberal worldview is the only legitimate way to see things are getting their comeuppance now. They’ve created a campus world of bigots, zealots, fanatics and frustrated running backs where physical intimidation of dissent is a legitimate form of expression.
Even the concept of free speech, the foundation on which the republic stands, is under attack on many campuses. At Yale, once a bastion of Ivy League scholarship, an administrator was surrounded by members of the Black Student Alliance who threatened him for standing up for free speech, which many students regard as “white privilege” and must be banished, lest someone hear something that would hurt someone’s feelings.
At New York University, a Halloween effigy of indeterminate race, decoration for a Halloween costume ball — a projection, actually, of a silhouetted figure against a wall — so frightened some students that they wrote to not one but two deans to complain that the ghostly projection was “disrespectful and harmful suicide imagery.” For students who “have lost someone to suicide or who have had personal experiences, this topic is not a Halloween gimmick.” The “kids” demanded an apology to those who may have been “triggered” by the images. “Triggering” was not defined, but it does sound scary.
An administrator at Yale, thinking it was a kind thing to do, sent out a thoughtful advisory to students suggesting they avoid hurtful Halloween costumes and images lest it cause pain no one could feel for them. Students were left to identify the images for themselves. One suggested Al Jolson in blackface would be unacceptable. Another waggish student thought Al Jolson might not be too scary, but Al Gore would be. But wit and humor has no place today on campus.
A protest of “structural racism,” with no particular specifics, at the University of Missouri turned mean and angry when one student went on a hunger strike, and whose cause soon was taken up by black members of the football team, who are having a sad season, having lost five straight. They threatened to dispense with the study of the fine points of blocking and tackling and wouldn’t play another game until the president of the university was sacked. The president and the chancellor resigned, rather than wait around for the inevitable.
Everyone in Missouri seemed to be in pursuit of a “safe place.” The governor, Jay Nixon, and Jay Pinkel, the coach of the Tigers, sent their regards to the students. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, expanded the definition of “safe place” to “encourage men to sometimes just shut the hell up.” She even has a list of topics men should not talk about, including “what women do with their bodies,” who the next James Bond should be, art, carbs, turkey brining, taking selfies, pantsuits and millennials.
Once, when grown-ups were in charge, the universities thought it a duty to teach the “kids” that life is full of “experiences.” Some are happy and some are not, and they might as well learn that now. Life is still a tough teacher, and grades on a sharp curve.
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