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The Campus Conscience
Police
"Over one's inner mind, and
self, no one has coercive power."
So write Jordan Lorence
and Harvey A. Silverglate, attorneys and authors of
the just-published www.thefire.org/index.php/article/5064.html
Guide to First-Year Orientation and Thought Reform
on Campus from the www.thefire.org
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
(FIRE). The Guide is yet another indication that
political correctness is faltering on campuses
across North America. To those who value the right
of individuals to a conscience -- that is, to judge
right and wrong for themselves -- this is welcome
news.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_correctness
Political correctness (PC) is the belief that
certain ideas and attitudes are improper and, so,
should be discouraged or prohibited by punishing
those who advance them. Conversely, ideas and
attitudes that are proper should be encouraged by
being enforced.
An example of a
politically incorrect idea: inherent biological
differences between the two sexes explain why there
are more male than female scientists. The correct
version: discrimination against women explains the
'gender imbalance' in science, and the
discrimination must be remedied.
Both preceding
explanations may have merit but PC is not
interested in weighing evidence. It acts to quash
the ideologically incorrect idea and to champion
the correct one.
Last January, when Harvard
University President Lawrence Summers raised the
mere possibility of biological differences as an
explanation for the 'gender imbalance' in science,
a vicious PC backlash forced him to mapologize
publicly no less than three times. After what some
called www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200502u/nj_taylor_2005-02-08
his "Soviet-show-trial-style apologies", Summers
made www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/05/17/summers_sets_50m_womens_initiative/
an act of contrition by pledging "to spend $50
million over the next decade to improve the climate
for women on campus."
©2008, Wendy
McElroy
* * *
Wendy
McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com
and a research fellow for The Independent Institute
in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of
many books and articles, including her latest book,
Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the
21st Century. She lives with her husband in
Canada. E-Mail.
Also, see her daily blog at www.zetetics.com/mac
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