Monday, April 24, 2006

The Whithered Old Wench Does All-Male Schools

Having just returned from the alma mater, I received an e-mail that The New York Times did an article yesterday on all-male institutions. Of course, the oldest of the four, Hampden-Sydney College, was prominently mentioned.

Sadly, it takes the usual, New York Times/politically-correct line on the Hill. Here's my favorite:
Once upon a time, not that long ago really, there was such a thing as a Yale man or a Dartmouth man or, closer to here, a University of Virginia or Washington and Lee man, each believed to be an identifiable subset of the male species. By the mid-1960's, there were still almost 250 all-male colleges, heirs to a long tradition of male entitlement going back to the beginnings of higher education in America.
And God forbid that the New York Times would write about all-male colleges without mentioning the Love that Dare Not Speak ... er, Will Not Shut Its Mouth:
So when Tim Samsa, a Hampden-Sydney senior, casually remarks, "This place is very homophobic," he's passing on information, not making a criticism, or when another student walks by in a T-shirt reading "Welcome to America — Now Speak English," he doesn't seem worried about offending anyone. (Of the 1,000 or so students enrolled at Hampden-Sydney, 8 percent are members of minority groups, 67 percent are Virginian and almost 89 percent are from the South.)

On the other hand, gay Hampden-Sydney graduates participated in a recent seminar on gay issues. And a theater teacher, Shirley Kagan, a Williams College graduate from New York who considers herself a feminist and a liberal, says she finds her students at Hampden-Sydney to be curious, open-minded and responsive.
More telling is the note that "gay Hampden-Sydney graduates participated in a recent seminar on gay issues." Apparently, none wanted their name associated with it.