Hirsi Ali, Condi Rice, Robert Birgeneau--Nails into the Coffin of Academic Freedom
As the season
of graduation of seniors from college and commencement addresses enters full
steam
Many students
facing student debts, feathering back to nest and wondering where is the
American Dream?
There
appears to be a very disturbing trend of closing access to any rational
discourse
Vocal
minorities demanding speakers and degree awards follow the left wing view without
remorse
Rutgers
under pressure from pickets and sit-ins of the smallest of the mental small
Folded under
pressure to cancel Condi Rice, a cowardly act of President who would not stand
tall
Brandeis
named after a Justice who was the utmost champion of free speech
A university
so named one would think rational debate on ideas would encourage and teach
A nail in
the coffin of academic freedom driven without shame by a vocal small number of
closed minds faculty
Pressured by
CAIR, Brandeis folded and withdrew its honorary degree from an outspoken critic
of radical Islam and defender of Muslim women’s rights-- Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
At Haverford
after protest again by a number of students and faculty against selection of the
speaker for commencement address
The former
Chancellor of Cal withdrew becoming another example of speech suppressed
His replacement Bowen
to his credit tore into the students as “arrogant” and “immature”
Anyone not
linked arm and arm or joined at the hip with their views is someone impure
A mind is a
terrible thing to waste and without challenges of ideas it withers and dies
Surrounded
by thoughts exactly the same, cut off from others different that might question
and defy
If so wasted
as seems to be the increasing PC trend and contra ideas to suppress
How do our
young minds ever develop the skills to difficult issues address?
Ironic that what a
speaker at commencement says while students sit waiting in the warm sun
Fades away in
terms of memory almost as quickly as soon as the speech has begun
But the
images and symbols of any speaker forced by a vocal minority to withdraw
Will last
forever on the tombstone of academic freedom where free speech is no longer the
driving law.
© May
18, 2014 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
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