Campus Outrage Awards

Building on the Scott Savage post below, you may have heard already of The Campus Outrage Awards, handed out by the Collegiate Network, but I'm passing these examples on to you nonetheless, just to fill in any blanks you may have regarding the low state of higher education in America.

The awards are an attempt by the Collegiate Network to shine a light on “diversity run amok, suppression of free speech, and discrimination against Christians, conservatives, and patriots continue to be the norm in American higher education.” ...

[First place went to] Yale University, which enrolls a former Taliban official with a 4th grade education into a non-degree program. “I’m the luckiest person in the world,” said Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former Deputy Foreign Secretary of the Taliban. “I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Instead I ended up at Yale.” The Collegiate Network placed Yale in first place in part because of the “hypocrisy” of the school for claiming to promote diversity while barring ROTC from its main campus.

[Second place] DePaul University, which the CN claims “has essentially declared war on free speech on campus.” According to the award citation, “the university suspended — without a hearing — a veteran adjunct professor for daring to debate students handing out pro-Palestinian literature on campus. Next, the administration branded as ‘propaganda’ a College Republican protest of a Ward Churchill speech on campus.” College officials also shut down an “affirmative action bake-sale” sponsored by the campus conservative club and charged the club member who organized the event with harassment. According to the Collegiate Network, “Apparently, free speech is allowed at DePaul only as long as it accords with the political views of the university administration.”

Third place was a tie between Stanford University and College of the Holy Cross. At both campuses, conservative alternative newspapers ran afoul of administration officials.

Officials of the University of California System got the 4th place award. The system got the award because “The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS Committee) of the UC Faculty Senate is refusing to award credit to high school students in Christian schools who take courses using textbooks published by A Beka Book and other conservative Christian presses.”

Fifth place was also a tie, given to two colleges for their reaction to 9/11 commemorations. The University of Iowa chose not to honor appropriately the 3,000 Americans killed that day and instead held a “Peacefest” on September 11, 2005. This celebration was sponsored by leftist groups, including the International Socialist Organization, War Resisters League of Iowa City, University of Iowa Antiwar Committee, the University of Iowa College Greens, and the Women for Peace Iowa. Canisius College’s College Republicans asked the school’s administration whether the group could place 3,000 small American flags on the quad as part of a 9/11 remembrance, a college official said it would damage the college’s expensive sprinkler system.

Ever the optomist, I predict that because pendula can only swing so far until they swing back, the increasing outrageousness of "Leftofascism" on college campuses will begin sparking ... dare I say the word? ... intolerable amounts of ridicule and backlash. Let them continue to be ridiculously close-minded for a bit more, then, maybe then, the Conservatives will be ready to show them what the word tolerant really means.

hat-tip: NightWatch News
Tags: Scott Savage, Academic freedom, College Outrage Awards, Stanford, De Paul, University of California, Yale, University of Iowa