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When Academic Snobs Attack
Education/Frank Salvato |
February 25, 2005 -
Some may say it’s nothing to laugh about but I can’t help but
find humor when the snobs of the academic elite find themselves mired in
paradoxical hypocrisy. One can almost smell the heat from their cerebral
wheels, the publicly funded oil burning away, as they try to come up with an
explanation of why they are between such a rock and a hard place. It reminds
me of the old Bill Cosby bit about the student who asked his Catholic
teacher the hypothetical question, "Father, if God can do anything, can He
Himself make a rock so big that He can’t move it?” All the priest could say
was "Sit down, Don.”
If, for the sake of analogy, our liberally slanted education community is a
ship that ship is listing so hard to port all it can do is sail to the left.
An image of a disabled vessel constantly drifting to port, doomed to an
eternity of increasing insignificance comes to mind. Within one of these
seven circles of Dantesque liberal hell is the paradox of Lawrence Summers
and Ward Churchill.
Unless you have been too caught up in the non-reporting of the facts by the
mainstream media, you know that liberal activists on our college campuses
are in an uproar over two of their own; Lawrence Summers, the president of
Harvard University, and Ward Churchill, a professor from the University of
Colorado. Both of these men – having made controversial statements – find
themselves engaged in battles involving their First Amendment free speech
rights. All the while the liberal academic community finds itself standing
on both sides of the spectrum, essentially, in two places at the same time,
screaming for protection for one while shrieking for the other’s head. The
interesting thing is that both Summers and Churchill did basically the same
thing.
Summers is being criticized by faculty, staff, students and liberal zealots
for daring to theorize that there are innate differences of "intrinsic
aptitude” between men and women. He speculated that it was because of these
differences there was a dearth of women employed in the natural sciences. He
repeatedly peppered his comments with the idea that his words were meant
"provoke” the academic community into thought and discussion on the matter.
Conversely, Ward Churchill is being defended by most in the academic
community for statements he made likening the traders and brokers who worked
in the ill-fated World Trade Center towers to "little Eichmanns.” Of course,
Churchill was referring to Adolf Eichmann, who orchestrated the "Final
Solution,” the genocide that delivered millions of Jews, Gypsies,
Homosexuals and Catholics to the death camps of World War II occupied
Europe. While his claims are grounded purely in opinion and conjecture,
Churchill maintains his right to state his grossly seditious and cruel
theories without apology and without consequence.
The paradox here is that while the snobs of the liberal elite trip all over
themselves to defend Churchill’s right to free speech – seditious as it is –
they are climbing over each other to cast their votes of no confidence for
Summers who admitted to theorizing the provocative in an effort to create
dialogue. I thought the liberal left enjoyed dialogue.
To add a bit of irony to the mix, Churchill has made comments that literally
come to Summers’ defense:
"It is our job to confront orthodoxy in a critical fashion, to raise
uncomfortable questions, to insult people, if you will, to force a response
to form a dialogue that furthers public understanding of issues," Churchill
said before a speech at the University of Hawaii.
While I believe that there should be some semblance of self-imposed
responsibility that goes with the rights our Founding Fathers penned for us,
the sad reality is this: if we are to preserve these rights we have to
preserve them even when some narcissistic moron pontificates the ridiculous,
the absurd and/or the obscene. We cannot have the mob rule mentality of
political correctness deciding what free speech is acceptable and what free
speech is not. I will defend anyone’s right to free speech but then I will
expect them to be brave enough to take responsibility for their words, no
matter what the consequences.
As for Summers and Churchill, they should both be terminated, not because of
what they said, rather because of what they are.
Churchill is a fraud who attained his tenure at the University of Colorado
claiming to be a Native American Indian which he is not. His ideology is so
bent to the left that it is impossible for a student in his class to examine
any opposing viewpoint without being considered in dissent. Summers, on the
other hand, has taken a once balanced and prestigious university and allowed
it to become a caldron of liberal bias, where ideological balance no longer
exists. Both of these "educators” have failed in their jobs and should be
terminated for poor job performance, not because of their controversial
statements. But then, they don’t fire teachers for not teaching these days,
now do they.
So, I will sit back and enjoy the spectacle of the liberal snobbery
contorting out of pure hypocrisy, one of their own hanging in the balance.
While it should be a sobering thing to watch those who bastardize our
Constitution for their own gain twisting in the wind, I can’t help but find
it humorous. Someone’s chickens have come home to roost and I find that
ironically amusing. Is that a bad thing?
Related Reading:
Harvard Howlers
http://www.nypost.com/news/nationalnews/41130.ht
Students Clash Over Summers’ Remarks
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=505819
Harvard Professors Blast Summers Over Remark on Women
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/B68709/
CU Professor: Free Speech Threatened
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3566313,00.html
School Can’t Locate Churchill’s Thesis
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_3568068,00.html
American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council
http://www.aimovement.org/moipr/churchill05.html
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