The '80s were hardly an era of open debate on college campuses
Star Tribune | October 18, 2007
Mitch Pearlstein

Grant Smith ("These are stifling times on college campuses," Oct. 12) pined for what he described as much more tolerant college campuses of the 1980s. Comparing then to now, he wrote, "I stand in awe over how intolerant of diverse views higher education and research institutions have become."

Was he really referring to the same decade I remember? When, for example, in 1983, intellectually barren thugs at the University of Minnesota unfurled a large swastika from the Northrop Auditorium balcony, trying to shout down then-United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick?

Or might he have been fondly recalling 1987, when a similar gang, again at Northrop, tried to prevent then-Vice President George H. W. Bush from speaking?

Or was Smith talking about the same stretch of history when students, especially at the most prestigious institutions, were more likely to sophomorically demonize Ronald Reagan as "Ray-Gun" than to welcome him respectfully to their campuses?

I agree with Smith when he criticizes the University of St. Thomas, an institution I very much respect, for its original decision, several months ago, to disinvite South African Bishop Desmond Tutu from speaking on campus. Well-intended and solicitous to the Jewish community as that move might have been, it nevertheless was unprincipled, dim and hugely counterproductive, and university President Dennis Dease was right, of course, to recently reverse field and reinvite Tutu.

But at the risk of framing this issue excessively in ideological terms, there was at least a subtle implication in Smith's column that scholars and speakers on the left such as Tutu are generally treated by colleges and universities no worse than their counterparts on the right; that all different kinds academics and activists are abused and censored equally. Yet no way is this true.

For example, was there any left-leaning commencement speaker this past spring who was treated as abysmally as Republican Sen. John McCain was by graduating boars at the New School in New York? Or who on the liberal side of the aisle in recent years has needed police protection to get in and out of lecture halls as frequently as conservative writer David Horowitz?

And as for retrieved invitations, I know of no one other than Linda Chavez -- in the supposedly open-minded 1980s -- who was told by a college president in New York City, "If you insist on speaking, I can't guarantee your safety."But you invited me, or at least members of your faculty did," she said in amazement, before being escorted from the building by bodyguards for a waiting car -- but getting punched anyway.

Multicultural mavens frequently went batty at the thought of Chavez (a former head of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission during the Reagan administration) speaking on their campuses, as she just wasn't their style of minority. The president of the University of Northern Colorado, for instance, disinvited her after students rallied against her scheduled appearance. And then (you'll love this one), instead of apologizing to Chavez, he apologized to the students for the "grossly insensitive" invitation in the first place.

Updating matters, let's not forget how Harvard President Larry Summers was run out of office not long ago when various broad-minded types on campus -- few of whom had voted for many Republicans since winning tenure -- didn't like what he had to say about possible explanations for the small number of women in the upper reaches of math and science. "Bigot," they screamed, though by any rational or fair measure, he's anything but.

There's much to admire about American higher education. Better than that, there's much about it I revere, both personally and professionally. But being consistently open to ideas of the right and their advocates just isn't one of them on a wide swath of campuses. And I truly don't remember matters being the least bit healthier or wiser 20 (quite) odd years ago.