Storming The Ivory Tower

Ah, college. That dream-like time during which I expanded my knowledge under the tutelage of wise, open-minded professors who encouraged me to think in new and creative ways. OK, not really. College, for those of you who haven’t been, is a place where you will meet some of the most dogmatic leftist extremists on the planet. Unfortunately, the worst offenders will not be your fellow students (although they can be pretty bad), but those in positions of authority above you, namely your instructors, department heads, and college presidents. And despite what they will tell you, I can say from personal experience that you will in fact be denied fair grades and perhaps even your diploma if you rock the ideological boat. I have always been personally offended by the rank hypocrisy displayed by these institutions of “higher learning”. So it was with great pleasure that I recently discovered the website of the group FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), a watchdog group dedicated to exposing the worst examples of the suppression of individual rights on campuses in the U.S. Although they operate from a conservative perspective, FIRE (like the ACLU), seems to be willing to stick up for the rights of all students and professors. They have recently gone to bat for a Muslim student group and a PETA member who was denied the right to distribute literature on her campus. They currently have some interesting articles on their site regarding speech codes, the censorship of student newspapers, and a heavy-handed attempt to expel a conservative student from an educational department due to his political views. I urge you to check out their webpage, and maybe even donate a bit of money if you can.