One of my favorite reads is John Leo's column in U.S. News & World Report, to which I've subscribed for more than a quarter-century, since my freshman year in high school. His coverage of the campus PC wars is invaluable.
Never saw much of it on the Hill (Hampden-Sydney College, a men's college founded in 1776), where the largest campus club was the College Republicans, and the only protest during the Vietnam era was over 24-hour visitation for female guests. My predecessors certainly had their priorities in order. A short summer stint in '85 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, for a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, was my first exposure to a campus where conservatives were in the minority. Had lots of fun writing for the Badger Herald, Madison's version of the Dartmouth Review.
Didn't really see any of the PC wars until I got to Emory, for law school, and the law school Dean, through his assistant, attempted to prevent our new chapter of the Federalist Society from hosting then-Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission --- a guy by the name of Clarence Thomas --- from speaking during the Student Government Association's "Discrimination Awareness Week." Said something about Thomas not being "an appropriate guest" for the event. Their mistake? Putting their nonsensical decision in writing. Thomas spoke in the law school auditorium.
Today's Washington Times relates another outrage, over student playwright Chris Lee, a young man at Washington State University, who challenged the campus orthodoxy by authoring a review called the "Passion of the Musical." Incredibly earnest campus lefties exercised the "hecklers' veto" with the support of the University president. Apparently satirizing the far Left is verboten at WSU.
Although I wasn't there, I would guess that the song "I Would Do Anything for Love, But I Won't Act Black" was a show-stopper. BTW, playwright Lee, a 23-year-old senior theatre major, is black.
Maybe we should start a collection to send Virginia's own Rick Sincere to review Lee's next production.
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