issue 5 Spring 2008 CRACK HEADS

Brought to you by American Academia

Indoctrination 101 $6.99US $8.99CAN Frat-ricidal Tendencies Curriculum Mortae The (Not So) Brights *State of the U Ten Corrosive Colleges Where Learning and Promiscuity Hook Up!

esides an education, what do you want out of your college experience? We’re betting it’s sex—and lots of it! That’s why at Kinsey College Bwe offer a full range of dormitory options that will make it easier than ever to debauch—right here on the premises and regardless of your sexual orientation.

RuPaul Hall Let’s say you’re a male student who self-identifi es as a female. Rather than the standard coed dorm, what you need is ready access to male students who are prepared to get it on with transsexual men. Well, at RuPaul Hall, that’s precisely what you’ll fi nd: a hotbed of perverse promiscuity tailor-made for the cross-dressing set.

Whether you choose to reside in Brokeback Commons, Humbert Humbert House (conveniently located adjacent to the Lolita Preparatory Academy), the DeGeneres Residential Cluster, Seabiscuit Lodge (with access to the barns Brokeback Commons of the School of Animal Husbandry), or plain old Hetero Hall—just to name a few of our residential options—you’ll fi nd the same licentious atmosphere that refl ects Kinsey College’s commitment to unfettered sexual expression for all.

Hook up without the hassles—and learn a little something along the way. Come to Kinsey!

Seabiscuit Lodge Dispatches issue 5 spring 08 INDOCTRINATION 101 10 A new orthodoxy has a stranglehold on American colleges and universities by Mark Linville

PICK YOUR POISON 26 Academic bias is ubiquitous, but choosing the right college can minimize the damage by Les Sillars and John Basie

STATE OF THE U 46 Just how bad is the indoctrination at American universities? We ask David Horowitz by Marcia Segelstein

QUAD PRO QUO 63 “Here’s your money,” say today’s college students, “Now give us our degrees!” by Marcia Segelstein Random Flak 20 CURRICULUM MORTAE Special Forces Sometimes indoctrination is a matter of life and death 17 FRIENDLY FIRE with Regis Nicoll by Karen Swallow Prior Sci-fi Apologetics Who’s really brighter: the naturalist or the supernaturalist? 38 STANDARD DEVIATION Why we should diverge from college 36 DEPROGRAM with Denyse O’Leary credentialism The Truth Hurts Following the evidence to by Doug Large career oblivion 54 THE FRAT TRAP 43 SEMPER SCI with Hugh Ross They insist that they’re harmless, but are Put ‘Em to the Test Toward resolving the conflict fraternities telling the truth? by Bobby Maddex between naturalism and intelligent design 52 FOREIGN INTEL with Michael Cook Weighty Problems There’s a limit to the number Standard Ops of issues we can panic over 03 OPENING SALVO 59 INTERROGATE with Greg Koukl 04 ON THE RADAR Crimes of the Heart Should it be illegal to hate? 04 INCOMING 68 R & R with Barbara Nicolosi 05 HIRED GUNS Oscar Redux What the 2008 Academy Awards 07 SHRAPNEL reveal about the culture Featured: Declining by Degrees (or the Loss Thereof) COUNTER INTELLIGENCE with S. T. Karnick 72 by Robert Lovvorn Speech Impediments How big media garble the OPERATION ID First Amendment 24 Fat Chance! by E. William Sockey III 79 PARTING SHOT with Herb London 76 BLIPS Mind Control Now occurring at a university near you Featured: A Ray of Hope by Julie Grisolano Founder Richard A. Moselle Executive Editor James M. Kushiner Editor Bobby Maddex Senior Editors Thomas S. Buchanan, Rebecca Hagelin, Russell D. Moore Contributing Editors Hunter Baker, Ken Brown, John Coleman, Raymond Keating, Marcia Segelstein, Leslie Sillars Graphic Designer Jerry Janquart Editorial Assistant Anita Kuhn Marketing Director Geoffrey R. Battersby salvo n. (săl'vō) 1. A mental reservation Development Director Julie Grisolano 2. An expedient for protecting one’s reputation Business Manager Michele Driver 3. A forceful verbal or written assault 4. A group of shots fired simultaneously for effect Columnists Michael Cook, S. T. Karnick, Greg Koukl, Herb London, Regis Nicoll, Barbara Nicolosi, Denyse O’Leary, Hugh Ross Editorial Advisory Board Francis J. Beckwith, We use the language of war, a metaphoric Mark Brumley, Paul Copan, Simon J. Dahlman, William Dembski, Norman Geisler, Robert P. George, conceit that is as old as literature itself, only Gary Habermas, Craig Hazen, Hugh Hewitt, to reflect the life-or-death seriousness of the Phillip E. Johnson, Greg Koukl, Frederica Mathewes-Green, endeavor in which we are engaged. Salvo does Stephen Meyer, J. P. Moreland, Paul Nelson, Fr. Mitch Pacwa, not advocate gratuitous violence in any form. John Mark Reynolds, Jay Richards, Hugh Ross, Fr. Ron Tacelli, John West, W. Bradford Wilcox Partner Organizations Credits/Salvo 5 Stand to Reason p. 9 - Oprah Winfrey, © Mario Anzuoni/Reuters/Corbis Reasons to Believe p. 20 - college students, © Corbis p. 22 - pro-life demonstration, © Ralf-Finn Hestoft/Corbis MercatorNet p. 23 - doctor and patient talking, © LWA-Dann Tardif/Corbis p. 38, 39 - mascot, Thomas Barwick, Getty Images A publication of The Fellowship of St. James (www.fsj.org), Salvo is dedicated p. 41 - Albert Einstein, Library of Congress - Doris Ullman, Getty Images to debunking the cultural myths that have undercut human dignity, all but p. 41 - Henry Ford, Library of Congress - digital version © Science Faction, destroyed the notions of virtue and morality, and slowly eroded our appetite Getty Images for transcendence. It also seeks to recover the one worldview that actually p. 41 - Tolstoy, Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy works. The opinions expressed by individual contributors are not necessarily p. 41 - Louis Armstrong, Ernst Haas, Getty Images those of the editors or publisher. p. 42 - bear mascot, Nate Jordan / Aflo, Getty Images SALVO (USPS XXX-XXX) is published in March, June, September, and December p. 54 - Young man on sofa, photos_alyson, Getty Images by The Fellowship of St. James at 4125 W. Newport Avenue, Chicago, IL 60641- p. 55 - Phi Pi Epsilon fraternity, © Underwood & Underwood/CORBIS 4009. Application to Mail at Periodicals Postage Rates is Pending at Chicago, IL p. 55 - Sigma Chi fraternity, Leonard McCombe, Getty Images and at additional mailing offices. p. 57 - beer bottles, © Bill Varie/CORBIS POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Fellowship of St. James, p. 59 - handgun to head, © Images.com/Corbis PO Box 410788, Chicago, IL 60641-0788. p. 60 - mob beating news photographers, © Bettmann/CORBIS SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES p. 63 - college students, © Tina Chang/Solus-Veer/Corbis For new or gift subscriptions, renewals, changes of address, or questions p. 64 - college student at northeast school, © Rob Howard/Corbis about your subscription, contact: Salvo Subscription Services, P.O. Box 3000, p. 65 - American troops, © Bettmann/CORBIS Denville, NJ 07834-9986, 1-800-783-4903. Back issues, missing or damaged p. 68 - preparations for 78th Annual Academy Awards®, copies: Call toll-free: 1-877-375-7373. © Lucy Nicholson/Reuters/Corbis p. 69 - Juno, Fox Searchlight/Photofest SUBSCRIPTION RATES p. 70 - There Will Be Blood, Paramount Pictures/Photofest U.S.: $25.99 for one year (four issues); $45.99 for two years (eight issues). p. 70 - The Departed, Warner Bros./Photofest Canada: $32.99 (U.S.) for one year; $59.99 (U.S.) for two years. Other foreign: p. 71 - Knocked Up, Universal Studios/Photofest $37.99 (U.S.) for one year; $69.99 (U.S.) for two years. Special rate for students p. 71 - The Cider House Rules, Miramax/Photofest and those on reduced incomes: $15.99 for one year. Bulk rates are available. p. 73 - Dana Jacobson, WireImage, Getty Images Copyright © 2008, The Fellowship of St. James. All rights reserved. No part of p. 74 - Don Imus, Getty Images this magazine may be reproduced in any form without permission. p. 75 - Sarah Silverman, © Katy Winn/Corbis p. 75 - Ted Turner, © Christy Bowe/Corbis The Fellowship of St. James p. 75 - Ian McKellen, © Deborah Feingold/Corbis P.O. Box 410788, Chicago, IL 60641 p. 75 - Rosie O’Donnell, © LAN/Corbis/Corbis Phone: (773) 481-1090 • Fax: (773) 481-1095 p. 75 - Kathy Griffin, © Catherine Ledner/Corbis Email: [email protected] www.salvomag.com

2 salvo issue 5 STANDARD OPS: hOpening Salvo

I did in fact buy into much of this nonsense; I wanted so desperately to find a place in academia—to earn the respect and admiration of my professors and peers—that I acceded to its dark side. Plus, the conviction with which these politically radi- cal concepts and assumptions were affirmed wore away at my common sense. I wasn’t learning anything more about British literature than I already knew, but I was definitely procuring a new worldview. In putting together this issue of Salvo, I have come to realize that my story is not at all unique. There are countless former students out there who are in school-loan debt up to their ears for having “earned” degrees in drivel. Unfortunately can now say without reser- had to do with Julian of Norwich, St. for many of them, they have yet to vation that I regret going Bonaventure, or The Cloud of Un- realize or acknowledge this as I have to graduate school. Having knowing I still don’t know. And then and thus find themselves still victim- enjoyed a quite solid and sub- in my classes on eighteenth-century ized by the bad ideas that attended stantial education at the un- poetry—my chosen emphasis—I their educations. Indeed, the leftist dergraduate level, I expected learned that what Alexander Pope, ideologues who inhabit American Ithe same of my terminal master’s pro- John Dryden, Bernard Mandeville, colleges and universities are intent gram in British literature. What I got and William Blake (my boys!) truly on indoctrinating students in their instead was political indoctrination— sought was not literary excellence, own political views, and they are and this was at a Catholic university. but rather the continued subju- doing so at the expense of both To supplement the plays in my gation of the lower class. I was academic freedom and real learn- Shakespeare course, I was required subjected to all this and more in ing. This is a national crisis in itself, to purchase (for $150!) and then seminar-style classroom discussions but it’s just one of the things wrong read a collection of photocopied that were devoid of lectures or any with our current system of higher essays on racism, gender ambiguity, kind of contextual information. education. In the following pages, religious oppression, colonialism, Why did I stay enrolled? To some we have attempted to address as extent, I sup- many of these problems as pos- pose I believed sible, lamenting their existence and There are countless former students out (until it was providing some possible solutions. there who are in school-loan debt up to their too late) that For obvious reasons, this is a sub- ears for having “earned” degrees in drivel. at any mo- ject that I feel quite passionate about, ment the real which explains why Salvo 5 is packed education to the gills with feature-length ar- and radical feminism. Some of these would finally begin. But if I’m honest ticles devoted to it. Some of the regu- essays—though not many—made with myself, I have to say that I also lar departmental columns to which passing references to the Bard, but allowed my ego to get in the way you may have grown accustomed what confused me, beyond their of my reason. I liked telling people (Crosshairs, Decode, Collateral Dam- apparent irrelevance, was how that I was working on a graduate age, and so on) had to be omitted they were made the focal point of degree in literature, and I couldn’t to make room for these pieces, but class discussion to the exclusion of wait to acquire the framed diploma I think you’ll agree that the trade- the plays themselves. Similarly, in a that would supposedly authorize off is worth it. We are committed to course on Medieval mysticism, my me as an expert in something. It curtailing the contaminative influ- first assigned task was to read and was this same attitude that made ence of contemporary academia. May summarize a scientific paper that me susceptible to the propaganda this issue inspire you to join the fight. ostensibly proved that even biological that inhered in my coursework. It’s sexual difference is a myth. What this embarrassing to admit it today, but Bobby Maddex, Editor

salvo spring 08 3 STANDARD OPS: Incoming

to ID supporters by the academic subscription to run out. Alas, I guess community. I just completed a survey I won’t be able to see whether this is of over 300 Darwin skeptics and found going to be a continuing trend. I had that over 90% of them have experi- grown weary of your overuse of im- enced academic problems due to their ages; they outweighed actual content beliefs. Many suffered from the loss by a ratio of two to one. of academic positions or the denial Doug Short of graduate degrees, and some even By email went through divorces because of it. Jerry Bergman, PhD Archbold, Ohio

The Ugly

The Good ere’s a question for you: If ID is he Opening Salvo in Salvo 4 was an science and not religion, then why The Bad H Texcellent way of showing the dif- is it that religious people are push- ference between a world driven by the read Salvo with great interest and, ing it while every reputable scientifi c views of evolution (we are just mud I usually, appreciation. Salvo 4 was organization is calling it bunk? You that has been animated by lightning) particularly interesting. That said, I feel do a disservice to science and to your and one in which we are made in the that your demeanor toward creation- country by publishing this nonsense. image of God and thus have intrinsic ism made you vulnerable to the accusa- Do you really think that the rest of the value. The real-life juxtaposition was tion that you fi nd it as ridiculous as world will stop studying real science if fantastic. evolution. The fact remains, however, the U.S. adopts ID? We will depend on Michael Mifsud that there is credible “hard science” more enlightened societies for scientif- By email that disputes the theory that the Earth ic advances if the scientifi cally ignorant is billions of years old. Intelligent prevail. greatly appreciated reading S. T. creationism cannot be faulted for the Howard Barnett IKarnick’s article “Girly Men: The unintelligent use of scientifi c data. By email Media’s Attack on Masculinity.” It Daniel J. Boes rightly pointed out that the subversion Mishawaka, Indiana ith all due respect, your mate- of masculine virtues occurs not only on Wrial on intelligent design seemed television and in the movies, but also just read my fi rst issue of Salvo maga- a bit one- sided. Did you choose your in the school system. Keep up the good Izine. While I enjoyed the thought- “top scientists and thinkers” solely work. provoking articles, I was disappointed from the ranks of the Discovery In- George Kocan by the Crosshairs column, in which stitute (ex- scientists such as Michael Warrenville, Illinois you profi led the atheist Paul Kurtz. Behe and William Dembski and non- By labeling him a “target” (and even scientists such as Casey Luskin)? Why he most recent issue of Salvo about including a target symbol over his pic- didn’t you fairly discuss both sides of Tthe ID movement was fabulous. I ture), you have mishandled the biblical the question? could hardly put it down! The maga- call to evangelism. This article will Paul Burnett zine just gets better and better. Kudos likely only alienate Kurtz and other By email to you and your writers. atheists from the religious community. Pat Schreiber Allison Reynolds By email Wheaton, Illinois Incoming our issue on intelligent design was just received Salvo 4, and I must Got a complaint? a commendation? a Ythe best that you have published Isay that if the previous issues had comment? some advice? Then write so far. I especially appreciated the dis- been this well done, I might have had us. Letter submissions should include cussion of the unprofessional response second thoughts about allowing my writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number and be sent by email to [email protected] or by mail to Incoming, Salvo, P.O. Box 410788, Chicago, IL 60641. On the Radar: 6 Submissions may be edited for length and clarity and published or used in any medium. All submissions become the property of the publication and will not be returned. Salvo is not The Ties That Bind responsible for unsolicited artwork or Why We Still Need the Traditional Family manuscripts.

y Misfires: Salvo 4 On page 28 of “Livin’ on a Prayer,” we incorrectly stated that Bill Harris is a cardiologist; he actually has a PhD in nutrition.

4 salvo issue 5 STANDARD OPS HIREDGUNS

John Basie (“Pick Your Poison,” Karen Swallow Prior (“Cur- Les Sillars (“Pick Your Poison,” p. 26 ) is the Associate Director for riculum Mortae,” p. 20) is Associate Pro- p. 26) lives in Stephens City, Virginia, Academics and Student Life at IMPACT fessor of English at Liberty University. and teaches journalism at Patrick Henry 360, a program in Christian philosophy She specializes in eighteenth-century College. He is on staff at WORLD Maga- and leadership for fi rst-year college British literature and is also an out- zine and is also a Contributing Editor of students. He also serves as a visiting spoken pro-life advocate. Salvo. His previous article for us was on professor of philosophy at Union Uni- pornography addicts. versity. Marcia Segelstein (“Quad Pro Quo,” p. 63, and “State of the U,” E. William Sockey III (“Fat Doug Large (“Standard Devia- p. 46) is a part-time writer and a full- Chance!,” p. 24) has an MA in the phi- tion,” p. 38) is a musician and music time mother. A former senior producer losophy of science from Thomas Aqui- educator who has taught over 1,000 of CBS News, she has also written for nas College and wrote his senior thesis students to play piano or guitar. He First Things, Touchstone, and on Darwin’s theory of evolution. performs throughout Florida with his OneNewsNow.com. jazz ensemble The Percolators.

Mark Linville (“Indoctrination 101,” p. 10) is a professor of Philoso- phy at Atlanta Christian College and the author of Is Everything Permitted? Moral Values in a World Without God. His most recent article in Salvo was on www.salvomag.com Peter Singer and bestiality.

Robert Lovvorn (“Declining by Degrees,” p. 7) is working on his -Subscription Information Master’s degree in philosophy at Loyola -Signs of the Times (The Salvo Blog) Marymount University. He will be apply- >www.salvomag.typepad.com ing for PhD programs in the fall. -Article Archives -Daily News Links ------and more . . .

3Visit us online today

salvo spring 08 5 Are You Headed in the Right Direction? The Sandy Rios Show Weekdays 3 – 5 pm (CT) Listen online at www.wyll.com

1160 AM

Chicagoʼs Christian WYLL Talk STANDARDSTANDARD OPSOPS as an “open letter” from Professor Onora O’Neill that begged SHRAPNEL the school to reconsider what she and others believe is under- y mining the very mission of the university. And the protests are ••••• not limited to philosophers, either. Paul D. Thacker, a free- lance science journalist, responded to Indiana State’s decision in Inside Higher Education, questioning whether a university without philosophy and physics departments could even be properly called a university. The motive behind eliminating these disciplines will not be unfamiliar to anyone who has formally studied philosophy. The question “What are you going to do with a philosophy degree?” refl ects our culture’s fi xation on specialization and the unquestioned assumption that knowledge is purely of instrumental value. In other words, knowledge is good insofar as it provides someone with the means to accomplish a certain (usually material) goal. In the past, it was often the university that shaped a given society, educating students in multifarious subjects. Today, it is society that is shaping the university. Students have been acculturated into believing that college is merely a means to 1 an end, so they tend to eschew classes outside of their majors. Never mind that undergraduates are often naive about what subjects they ought to take and often lack the maturity to understand the importance of a university’s core requirements; the university will acquiesce to their desires anyway, in order to Declining by Degrees maintain a healthy enrollment. This view of knowledge is certainly untenable. For the sake (or the Loss Thereof) of our worldviews alone, it is crucial that we seek to under- stand the reasons for our existence, the similarities and differ- Higher Education Stoops to New Lows ences between the various societies that comprise our world, with the Elimination of Philosophy and the histories of those who came before us. Indeed, the humanities serve not just as a way to pass the time, but rather by Robert Lovvorn as a way to make our lives fuller and richer. As part of this journey to a fuller life, philosophy beckons us to ask questions regarding man’s place in the universe, what he last couple of decades have seen the closing of it means to act morally, and whether there is in fact a reality an increasing number of philosophy departments that transcends us. To be sure, these concerns do not supplant within American universities. A year ago, for instance, the aspirations of the other disciplines; they do, however, take TIndiana State University made the controversial deci- place alongside them and provide in the end a necessary com- sion to close both its philosophy and physics departments in ponent of the rich and intricate tapestry of our culture. an effort to reduce the number of programs offered. At other By trimming down, dissolving, or eliminating philosophy universities, smaller departments have been forced to dissolve departments, universities are leaving their students with a into a humanities conglomerate—or, as was the case this year more narrow and defi cient education. While it may pay off at Oral Roberts University, to eliminate philoso- phy in favor of more overtly religious subjects. For the sake of our worldviews alone, it is crucial Such decisions are not unique to the American educational system. The University that we seek to understand the reasons for our of Wales–Swansea decided in 2004 to phase existence, the similarities and differences between out its philosophy program as well, resulting the various societies that comprise our world, and in a plethora of complaints from professors in the United States and the U.K. Most recently, the histories of those who came before us. the new president of Leiden University in the Netherlands has been attempting to dissolve his school’s materially, it will not provide graduates with the knowledge philosophy program, among others, into a giant, nebulous that will make them better people and enable them to con- Humanities/Arts department. tribute to the intellectual and spiritual vitality of society. Given These cuts do not go uncontested. The situation at the this, a university that fails to make provision for philosophical University of Wales resulted in over a hundred letters, as well learning fails both its students and society at large.

salvo spring 08 7 STANDARD OPS SHRAPNEL •••••y 2 s if we aren’t already living in a sex-crazed culture, we may soon have to contend with robots whose primary function is to satisfy carnal desire. This according to David Levy, a 62-year-old expert in artifi cial intelligence and the Aauthor of Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships. By the year 2050, he argues, we’ll have the capacity to manufacture robots that are indistinguishable from real people—and then we’ll have sex with them. Not only that, but some people will marry these robots, says Levy, who believes that such relationships can benefi t society in that they will help satiate the danger- ous appetites of sexual criminals. They’ll likewise combat the loneliness of those who are too unattractive or antisocial to entice a living, breathing mate. And the sex will be better, Levy contends, which makes you wonder whether 2050 will also be the year that human reproduction fi nally comes to an end.

3 n what reminds us here at Salvo of the Super- friends—or better yet, Ithe Ex-Presidents from Saturday TV Fun- house—Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu, among others, have joined forces to form The Elders, a group of prominent “world leaders” who fi ght for truth, justice, and the American way. Well, not exactly. Actually, their mission is to contribute “wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems.” In other words, much like Michael Landon in Highway to Heaven, The Elders drop in on unsuspecting communi- ties, bless them with their presence for a bit, and then leave them with all of their problems . . . well, pretty much the same as before. But everyone feels better just knowing there’s a group like The Elders around to, as their press release says, “use their unique collec- tive skills to catalyze peaceful resolutions to long- standing confl icts [and] articulate new approaches to global issues.” Apparently, leap- ing tall buildings in a single bound was already taken.

emember the show My Two Dads, in which Paul Reiser and that other guy had to share custody of a teenage girl whom either could have fathered with her now deceased mother? RYeah, this is nothing like that. Rather, a group of research- ers in Great Britain has announced that we are just fi ve to fi fteen years away from scientifi c advances that will allow 4 gay couples to have children. Led by professor John Harris, the consortium contends that “artifi cial” sperm and eggs will be produced from stem cells, which will allow for the combination of DNA from two homosexual men. And you can forget your ethical objections. “Policy-makers should refrain from interfering with scientifi c inquiry unless there is a substantial justifi cation for doing so that reaches beyond disagreements based solely on divergent moral convictions,” the group argues. What about the psychological damage that this arrangement could have on the resultant child? “At this stage,” say researchers, “the real ethical issue is to ensure that the science can continue.”

8 salvo issue 5 5

rom the woman who told you what to read, who helped you “get with the program,” and who in- troduced the world to Dr. Phil comes . . . theology. FThat’s right; her highness Ms. Oprah Winfrey has finally taken the step that we all knew was coming and started her own cult. In a series of ten webcasts, the reigning queen of daytime talk shows and the richest woman in the entertainment industry has been speaking with Eckhart Tolle about his bestsell- ing book of spiritual pap, A New Earth, and pro- viding a few of her own spiritual “insights” along the way. “God in the essence of all consciousness isn’t something to believe—God is,” she told her audience. “And God is a feeling experience, not a be- lieving experience. And if your religion is a believing experience, if God for you is still about a belief, then it’s not truly God.” A half-million people watched the first of these webcasts live, and now they can continue to discuss them in the “study groups” that Winfrey has set up at bookstores around the world. Thankfully, while the online sessions are underwrit- ten by the likes of General Motors and 3M Corp., Oprah has yet to announce that Kool-Aid will join the sponsorship team. 6

he University of Delaware has finally revised one of the most onerous speech codes in the country. Sort of. Previously, the school classified “any instance that is perceived by those involved as being racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, or otherwise Toppressive” as a campus-wide emergency equal in seriousness to fire, a suicide attempt, or an alcohol overdose. And the punishment for engaging in such “bias-motivated” behavior was immediate expulsion. Well, the zero-tolerance portion of the speech code remains, unfortunately, but the lan- guage has been changed to punish only “significant bias related acts that have the potential to create a signifi- cant disturbance to the community.” The problem is that Resident Assistants—otherwise known as “students”— are the people charged with interpreting whether an instance of biased speech is in fact significant enough to notify the authorities. Let the unfounded allegations begin!

ere in the U.S. we are regularly confronted with the claim that pornography represents a harmless diversion. But now a group of “researchers” out of Australia is contending that porn is actually good for you. Published under the title The Porn Report, the so-called findings are part of the three-year project “Understanding Pornography in Australia,” and Hthey exuberantly state that up to one-third of Australian adults now consume porn. “It [thus] makes no sense to treat porn consumers as an aberrant group,” say the researchers, all three of whom are women who were exposed to pornog- raphy at an early age (what a surprise). The question remains, of course, how they came to the conclusion that porn is 7 actually beneficial to users. It turns out that this particular conclusion was the result of a self-selecting sample of porn us- ers who said that porn is good for them (three cheers for science!). Fortunately, the Women’s Forum Australia will soon challenge this study with its “Real Porn Report,” which will tackle the harmful effects of pornography, including violence and aggression toward women.

salvo spring 08 9 DISPATCHES

A New Orthodoxy Has a Stranglehold on American Colleges and Universities INDOCTRINATION 101 By Mark Linville

10 salvo issue 5 But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is “robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer percep- tion and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.“ —John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

rooke Aldrich, a freshman at accepted by anyone else? Among other things, it implausibly the University of Delaware (UD), characterizes a young lady with race-indifferent benevolence as sounds like a nice person. “I a racist, while rescuing from any such charge Kamau Kambon, personally have no problem with onetime visiting professor at North Carolina State University, who anyone of any background, race, advocates racial genocide against “white people”: “The only solu- sexual identity, or any religion,” tion in my estimation is to exterminate white people from the face she told reporters in November. “I of the earth,” Kambon said to applause at Howard University. Baccept people for who they are as people.” But Clearly, the views presented in such diversity-training sessions the animal-science major learned that she was are controversial, some might even say morally repugnant. But the actually deluding herself on this score in a “Diver- problem isn’t with the assertions themselves. Dr. Butler is entitled sity Facilitation Training” session that university to hold and express such beliefs, and to do so within an academic residence-life offi cials sponsored in her residence setting. Let her ideas be aired, assessed, and openly debated in the hall last fall. classroom or in other campus forums. This contributes to the sort The program utilized a manual written by of intellectual diversity—that clash of opposing ideas defended by a Dr. Shakti Butler, which, like some bad parody John Stuart Mill—that inspires careful, critical, and independent of the Geometric Method, begins with a set of thinking. Rather, what’s dangerous here is that such views were axioms and defi nitions, and then proceeds in- foisted upon an essentially captive and impressionable audience, exorably to the conclusion that people such as and with no room for argument or debate. Thus, the implication Brooke, wittingly or not, share solidarity with conveyed is that anyone who denies them must be stupid, igno- those who would burn crosses and don bed sheets rant, or wicked. This is indoctrination, not education. or jackboots. Students in the mandatory sessions learned that all and only “white people” are rac- ists and that “racist” is synonymous with “white The New Orthodoxy supremacist.” Butler believes that racism involves racial prejudice plus the privilege and power The program at UD is indicative of a mindset shared by many col- bestowed by an inherently white-supremacist lege administrators and faculty around the nation who think it system. We thus have the makings of a compelling their mission as educators to imbue their students with a compre- argument with a surprising conclusion: All and hensive and well-defi ned political outlook. The shared assumption only white people are racists; all and only racists is that, as a society, we have been systematically programmed to are white supremacists; Brooke is a white person; think within categories that are essentially racist, sexist, classist, therefore, Brooke is a racist; therefore, Brooke is a and “homophobic.” The only cure is to reprogram or reeducate white supremacist. Quod est demonstratum. ourselves. Thus, on many university and college campuses, there Dr. Butler is of course free to defi ne “rac- is a concerted effort on the part of faculty, administrators, and ist” however she sees fi t. (I only hope that she student groups to establish a new orthodoxy—the orthodoxy of will reciprocate and afford me equal latitude the extreme left—and to silence and shame any and all dissent- with “idiot.”) But why should her defi nition be ers. This orthodoxy manifests itself in a variety of ways, including

salvo spring 08 11 01 FACT FINDS the public, to fi t as much as they can of ------their own conclusions to premises which 2 This past summer, a lawsuit was fi led against the University they have internally renounced. of Florida for refusing to recognize a student organization geared toward Christian men. The fraternity Beta Upsilon Chi A society in such a state, Mill argues, “cannot send (BYX) requires its members to be both Christian and male, and forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, the school alleged that this was a form of discrimination. As a consistent intellects who once adorned the think- result, BYX was denied status as a Registered Student Organiza- ing world.” Mill’s concern was for society at large. tion and had to conduct its meetings off-campus. • How much more does his argument apply to the university, whose central mission should be to “send forth” precisely such individuals? Let’s con- sider a few examples from recent years. sensitivity-training sessions like the one just described; various campus speech codes that characterize as “hate speech” expres- sions of religious or conservative views (opposition to abortion or Academic same-sex marriage, for instance); loyalty oaths and litmus tests for faculty, students, and staff; and dogmatic and one-sided presen- Misconduct tations by leftist professors. In some cases, entire programs of study have been established with the clear intention of preparing As recently as 2005, freshmen at Ohio State Uni- social activists of a decidedly leftist mindset to become “catalysts versity (OSU) at Manchester underwent mandatory of change.” The sad truth is that on many college campuses, the anti-homophobia sensitivity training during their far left enjoys the power of the status quo, so conservative voices orientation. Manchester, of course, is the same are either quite literally shouted down (as was the case with OSU campus where a librarian was charged with David Horowitz on a recent visit to Emory University) or shut out sexual harassment for recommending the book altogether. The Marketing of Evil (which condemns homo- The nearly inevitable result is that “intellectual pacifi cation” sexuality) as potential reading material for incom- is achieved at the sacrifi ce of “the moral courage of the human ing freshmen. The book itself was subsequently mind,” as J. S. Mill put it. Indeed, Mill goes on to describe this situ- banned as “hate speech.” ation as that A women’s studies course at the University of South Carolina at Columbia established guidelines state of things in which a large portion of the most ac- for class discussion that included an acknowledge- tive and inquiring intellects fi nd it advisable to keep the ment “that racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, general principles and grounds of their convictions within and other institutionalized forms of oppression their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to exist,” and that “one mechanism of institutional- GROUPTHINK

h, that we had the space to share with you the full text A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white of the many, many diversity training manuals that are O supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to circulating throughout our colleges and universities. You all white people (i.e., people of European de- scent) living in the United States, regardless of have to see these things to believe them, so intent are they class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this defi nition, people of color cannot be rac- on instilling the new orthodoxy in the minds of unwitting ists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, students. What we can do is provide a brief glimpse into one they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities or acts of discrimination. such manual to give you at least some idea of the assump- A NON-RACIST: A non-term. The term was tions under which the far left operates. Following are just created by whites to deny responsibility for two of the thirteen defi nitions included in Dr. Shakti Butler’s systemic racism, to maintain an aura of inno- cence in the face of racial oppression, and to handbook for “Diversity Facilitation Training” at the Uni- shift responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called “blaming the versity of Delaware. Keep in mind that the training sessions victim”). Responsibility for perpetuating and were mandatory for all residence-hall students, and that at- legitimizing a racist system rests both on those who actively maintain it, and on those who tendees were not permitted to contest their content. refuse to challenge it. Silence is consent.

12 salvo issue 5 ized racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, etc., is that we are all systematically taught misinforma- tion about our own group and about members of On many campuses, if you’re an evangeli- other groups.” But what of those students who “ are not convinced that any or all of these “insti- cal Christian, you’re going to have to go tutionalized forms of oppression exist,” or who believe that heterosexuality is in fact normative? Perhaps the instructor should have warned off through classes in which you’re told that the conservative students who were considering her class in the way that Conservatives have been much of what you believe religiously is warned off elsewhere. For instance, the course description for “The Politics and Poetics of Pales- not just wrong, but worthy of mockery. tinian Resistance” offered at UC-Berkeley included “ this warning: “Conservative thinkers are encour- aged to seek other sections.” At Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, Ed Swan, a At a California community college, an instruc- student in the College of Education, made the mistake of ex- tor in a class on “Human Heredity” was termi- pressing his Christian and conservative views in a class discussion. nated recently for discussing the “nature versus Although he managed superior grades, the result was that several nurture” debate with regard to homosexuality, professors in the department gave him failing marks on his “dis- articulating and perhaps defending the “nurture” positions evaluation,” which included an assessment of his charac- perspective. Apparently, no one had informed this ter based in part upon his commitment to “diversity” and “social professor that the debate on this subject was over, justice.” Because of his failing marks, he was told that in order to making expressions of the “losing” side intoler- stay in the program, he would have to sign a contract agreeing able. to attend a National Coalition Building Institute training session Bucks County Community College (BCCC) (read: sensitivity training) and to meet with Melynda Huskey, the found a way to avoid such a debacle; it required Assistant Vice President for Equity and Diversity and the director of new faculty applicants to describe their “com- WSU’s LGBT offi ce, who, according to Swan, “was confrontational mitment to diversity.” A BCCC professor who was and made the matter a personal one.” upset by the requirement (and who eventually The theory behind “dispositions evaluations” is that “pre- got it withdrawn) called it “a diversity loyalty service teachers” should be assessed on their character before oath.” He added that “a college campus should being trusted with the nation’s youth. The trouble with the theory be a marketplace of ideas—diversity of thinking, is that it permits this character assessment to be conducted from a a robust discussion, civil argumentation, testing of strict ideological framework. Critics thus insist that it puts faculty ideas, for people with all kinds of wonderfully di- and administrators—particularly those with leftist propensities—in verse political, cultural and social viewpoints.” He the position of “ideological gatekeepers” who can create a pool of suggested that the cultural diversity sought in the teachers sanitized of the likes of Ed Swan. application process stifl es the intellectual diversity It is diffi cult not to agree with such critics. Consider the “con- that makes for a vibrant campus community. He ceptual framework” within which the College of Education at the may be right. But feel free to disagree with him. University of Alabama has worked (until a 2007 revision and soft- After all, that is what the marketplace of ideas is ening of the language, perhaps due to increased public scrutiny). all about. It is “committed to preparing individuals to promote social justice, At Citrus College in California, Rosalyn Kahn, to be change agents, and to recognize individual and institutional a professor in a speech class, offered extra credit racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism.” Clearly, this institution to students who agreed to write to President Bush has formally adopted a one-sided political agenda with specifi c protesting the impending invasion of Iraq. She and hotly contested views on race, gender, and sexual orientation. refused credit to students offering to send letters This is not a unique or isolated case. Such are the goals of many of support to the President. Such inappropriate NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) politicizing of the classroom reminds me of C. S. accredited schools nationwide. This is not teacher training; it is Lewis’s famous complaint in The Abolition of Man missionary training. that the authors of a book on grammar spent their time fobbing off a half-baked philosophy of subjectivism rather than helping their readers Believers Beware! gain a real facility with the language. One fears that there is an army of Rosalyn Kahns who are The new orthodox agenda is not limited to schools of education. substituting “Why Bush Is a Fascist 101” for “Late Social-work programs around the country are almost universally Victorian Novelists” and lectures on “How to Com- premised upon its principles. Consider the department’s stance on bat Homophobia” for Calculus. “homophobia” at St. Cloud State University:

salvo spring 08 13 Because homophobia is so deeply embedded in our cul- Christian convictions. The professor then accused ture, it is likely that many social work students, as many her of violating the school’s Standards of Essential other people in society, will have preconceived nega- Functioning in Social Work Education. The accusa- tive stereotypes about gay males and lesbians. . . . The tion resulted in her appearance before a college Department’s intent is to introduce knowledge and values ethics committee where faculty members grilled that will challenge and help to combat these attitudes and her with such questions as, “Do you think gays stereotypes. Students’ openness to learning is essential be- and lesbians are sinners?” “Do you think I am a cause those who hold negative attitudes and stereotypes sinner?” Brooker claims that faculty told her that about diverse populations can do serious harm to clients in she would have to “lessen the gap” between her their future social work practice. To prevent this, students beliefs and the requirements of the national code must be open to examining their prejudices, including of ethics embraced by the department. She sued their homophobia. the university, and the case was quickly settled out of court. David French, director of the advocacy The language here is interesting. Since the department thinks group that defended Brooker, argued that “the that the harboring of negative attitudes toward homosexuals “can university is supposed to be the marketplace of do serious harm,” and since it undoubtedly does not wish to foster ideas, and professors should be tolerant of the mayhem and mischief, its insistence that students merely “exam- opinions of Christian students as well as those of ine” their prejudices is an understatement. “Examine” does not non-Christian students.” refer to the Socratic exercise that may possibly vindicate currently Brooker’s case drew national attention, held beliefs. Rather, it is a euphemism for “root out and elimi- prompting a piece in The Washington Post by nate.” Note also that the language is vague. Does the belief that Alan Cooperman: “Is There Disdain for Evangeli- homosexuality is immoral, a belief held by not a few people within cals in the Classroom?” Cooperman cited a sur- our society, qualify as such an unacceptable “prejudice” or “stereo- vey of some 1,200 college and university faculty type” to be combated? that revealed that 53 percent of college profes- St. Cloud’s undergraduate program in social work is accredited sors professed “unfavorable” attitudes—where by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), and here is the “ unfavorable” was the most negative category in rub. Accreditation through CSWE is contingent upon adherence to the survey—toward Evangelical Christians. Inter- its requirement that graduates of all accredited programs dem- estingly, the majority “expressed positive feelings onstrate a commitment to “social and economic justice.” We may toward Jews, Buddhists, Roman Catholics and suppose that all thinking persons of good will are concerned for most other religious groups.” “social justice.” But in the hands of zealots, “social justice” may Cary Nelson, then president of the American be defi ned in an exclusive and controversial way. The Foundation Association of University Professors, insists that for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a non-partisan organiza- such attitudes refl ect “political and cultural resis- tion dedicated to the preservation of constitutional and academic tance” rather than a “religious bias.” In particular, freedom, has argued that such language is vague and politically he says, they stem from the association between loaded—that it virtually mandates that potential graduates be Evangelicalism and Republican politics, as well as evaluated for their political views. the perception that Evangelicals ostensibly eschew What of those students of differing political and moral persua- a scientifi c understanding of the world. What sion who have a heart for helping people through social work? Nelson fails to acknowledge, however, is that Take the plight of Emily Brooker at Missouri State University, religious beliefs typically inform social and politi- whose social-work professor gave the class an assignment that cal issues—such as gay rights and abortion, on the violated her conscience. Students were asked to write and sign one hand, and a commitment to a theistic meta- letters to the Missouri legislature advocating adoption by homo- physics incompatible with naturalistic assumptions, sexual couples. She refused, saying that to do so would violate her on the other. As Brooker’s case illustrates, there is a clash between “personal belief” and the expec- tations of the new orthodoxy. David French makes an appearance in the Cooperman editorial as well. He is quoted as saying that “on many campuses, if you’re an evangelical Christian, you’re going to have to go through classes in which you’re told that much of what you believe religiously is not just wrong, but worthy of mockery.” Religious groups around the country are increasingly fi nding that they are not particularly welcomed by college and university administra- tors. Administrators at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Superior, for example, “derecognized” the

14 salvo issue 5 LEFT IN CHARGE f you were to ask your English professor whether there is a liberal bias at your university, chances are Ithat he would respond in the negative and with much rolling of the eyes. For years now, American colleges have fi ercely rejected the notion that their faculties fail to refl ect the ideological diversity of the US populace. Well, guess what? A new study by Daniel Klein of George Mason University indicates that such denials are completely unfounded. Based on a survey that explored the ratio of Democrats to Republicans among the tenure-track teaching staff of Stanford University and the University of Cali- fornia-Berkeley, the researcher found that Democratic professors outnumber Republican professors by a margin of eight to one. Not only that, but some departments, such as journalism and anthropology, do not have a single Republican or right-leaning professor on their faculty. Klein also discovered that the claim that the Democratic dominance of academic fi elds does not matter because Democrats offer more diversity of opinion than Republicans do is a downright falsehood. In fact, the opposite is much closer to the truth, with professors who self-identify as “conservative” exhibiting a more varied range of opinions. And the scariest of Klein’s fi ndings? The liberal bias on college campuses is only going to increase over time as the last tenured Republican faculty members retire and are replaced by what Klein calls the “hippy left.”

campus chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fel- librarian was dropped the very day that it was formally challenged. lowship (IVCF) on the grounds that the student One now fi nds dead links on university web pages where, presum- group employed discriminatory policies. It seems ably, references to sensitivity-training sessions once appeared. As that IVCF limited their leadership positions to I’ve noted, the language of “conceptual frameworks” and mission Christians. Imagine that! One wonders what the statements has also been revised of late, as the original, militant policies of the UW-Superior’s “Queer and Allied language has invited scrutiny and the potential for constitutional Student Union” would dictate in the event that a challenges. (One advocate of freshmen diversity training noted “homophobic,” IVCF type were to seek a position that the prudent advice among the politically orthodox is “Don’t of leadership. F-up and get us sued.”) Similar cases are cropping up everywhere Notably, under pressure from organizations such as FIRE, the around the country. The current chancellor at diversity training at UD, the story with which I opened, was discon- my own alma mater, the University of Wisconsin- tinued in November 2007 as well. This had to be terribly discourag- Madison, recently attempted to refuse recognition ing to the residence-life offi cials at UD, especially considering that, or funding to the UW-Madison Roman Catholic in early 2006, they had basked in the glow of several “social justice Foundation (UWRCF), one of several faith-based awards” from the American College Personnel Association (ACPA) student groups on campus, on the grounds that and the Commission for Social Justice Educators (CSJE). “The the group was “too religious.” The Center for number and quality of the department’s initiatives in the areas of Academic Freedom subsequently fi led suit against diversity, multiculturalism, and the eradication of oppression are the university, and the UW-Madison’s policies were remarkable. I am proud of the staff’s work and pleased that it is re- eventually ruled unconstitutional. ceiving national recognition,” beamed one administrator. Another staff member noted that “getting recognized with such presti- gious honors also spurs the mission of social justice on to greater Lady Liberty heights.” Presumably, the mandatory residence-hall sessions were part of this ascent to the summit. Most of the cases that I have mentioned here It turns out that UD residence-life offi cials had already planned involved the intervention of organizations such the “Second Annual Residential Curriculum Institute” for January as FIRE and the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF). And 2008, this time with the program being held up as a model for at- thus far, as these encroachments of constitutional tendees from res-life departments around the country. The Novem- liberties have been brought before the public ber dismantling of the diversity program resulted in a dramatic eye and into the courts, they have in turn melted and somber introduction to that conference. The opening female away like a late spring snow in the noon sun. For speaker held a large, lit candle and stood before a plate of smaller, example, the harassment charge against the OSU unlit candles of diverse colors. The large candle represented “the

salvo spring 08 15 knowledge and responsibility that we have as student affairs and silencing dissenters, yet they do not invite legal residence life professionals.” The smaller candles were the students challenges from advocacy groups. “to whom we pass on that light”—students, this person indicated, As goes today’s university, so goes tomorrow’s who need to learn about social justice, multiculturalism, diversity, society. Those campus administrators and faculty and sustainability. She then blew out the large candle. “Our light who promote the new orthodoxy understand this went out,” she said. And in an obvious reference to the discontinu- principle. They are utopians who envision a society ation of the residence-life program, she added that it was “hate, purged of habits of mind that they view as oppres- fear, ignorance and stupidity” that was responsible for putting it sive and are thus engaged in what Dinesh D’Souza out. She then relit the candle to indicate that the present confer- describes as a “revolution from the top down.” ence would serve to renew the noble mission that would never Charles Malik also understood the profound again succumb to the forces of darkness. infl uence that the academy has on a culture. In I do not question the good intentions of this candle- bearing a speech titled “The Two Tasks of Evangelism,” speaker. I agree with her that a light is in danger of being extin- delivered in 1980 at the inauguration of Wheaton guished, though not the one she herself was holding. This one College’s Billy Graham Center, Malik urged Evan- is borne high by a solitary fi gure standing in a harbor where gelicals to eschew the anti-intellectualism that people of diverse beliefs and national origins have caught their characterized them. The consequences of continu- fi rst glimpse of a country that was conceived in liberty—a nation ing down their current path, he said, was that once determined to avoid imposing an offi cial orthodoxy upon its “the arena of creative thinking [would be com- citizens. pletely] vacated and abdicated to the enemy.” The same might be said of social conservatives in general. FIRE maintains that “it is essential that Ascend & Challenge our nation’s future leaders be educated members of a free society, learning to debate and to resolve Despite the laudable efforts and noteworthy successes of groups differences peacefully, without resorting to ad- such as FIRE and ADF, proponents of the diversity gospel do not ministrative coercion.” I agree. Much of the blame intend to go away. And for every case that is brought to the at- for the current condition of universities rests upon tention of these advocacy groups, countless more go unreported. the shoulders of the ideological gatekeepers Students are typically unaware of their constitutional and moral described here. But the situation is exacerbated rights, so they don’t always realize that their rights are being by those with solid moral and intellectual view- violated by coercive campus policies and programs. Even where points who choose not to ascend the Ivory Tower campus offi cials have refrained from the Orwellian tactics previ- of Academia. It is not enough that real debate and ously described, the far left has succeeded in creating a “plausibil- dialogue be permitted at our nation’s colleges and ity structure” that strongly discourages expressions of Christian universities. We must likewise encourage those conviction or conservative outlook. John Stuart Mill was as much with both the academic wherewithal and a com- concerned about mere “social intolerance,” resulting in one being mitment to true intellectual diversity to rise to the “ill-thought of and ill-spoken of,” as he was about more obvious challenge and join this battle for the heart and forms of oppression. After all, such snubs are nearly as effective in mind of the culture.

16 salvo issue 5 SPECIAL FORCES //friendly.fire_with Regis Nicoll Sci-fi Apologetics Who’s Really Brighter: the Naturalist or the Supernaturalist?

while back, I had a lively discussion with supernaturalism is propped up by what Phil called “sci-fi “Phil,” an academic philosopher, a self- apologetics.” described atheist, and a “Bright.” Never Whether it’s The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or heard of Brights? Well, according to their Star Trek, every sci-fi yarn contains departures from known website, Brights are people whose world- physical laws, breaks in logic, and internal inconsistencies Aviews are “free of supernatural and mystical elements.” In that devoted fans will either ignore or accept on the basis other words, they are naturalists, and among their bright- of flimsy rationalizations. The same goes for supernatu- est stars are Daniel Dennett, Michael Shermer, and Richard ralists, Phil argued. They will discount or explain away Dawkins. any difficulty that threatens the cohesion of their world- Anyway, during our dialogue, Phil expressed unflag- view. Conversely, naturalism is free of any such blinkered ging admiration for his own Bright worldview. And before commitment—or so Phil’s argument went. long, his admiration moved to paean: “Mighty in merit,” “powerful,” “a pinnacle of human thought,” “so parsi- Eerie Coincidences monious”: These were just a few of his superlatives. Wait For some time now, scientists have known that our life- a minute—parsimonious? That’s right. Phil explained that friendly cosmos depends on the delicate balancing of naturalistic science, which is responsible for mankind’s a host of universal constants: Newton’s gravitational most breathtaking achievements, rests on the sparsest constant, the mass and charge of the electron, and the number of conjectures and surrenders nothing to what lies strengths of nuclear forces, just to name a few. If the value beyond empirical verification. of any one of these constants was slightly different, ques- The supernatural worldview, on the other hand, in- tions about the universe wouldn’t exist because intelligent serts the “Cosmic Tinkerer” into every perceived dead end. beings wouldn’t be around to ask them. This makes scien- As a placeholder for our ignorance, “God” is not an expla- tific naturalists edgy; for them, conditions that depend on nation, but rather an obstacle to progress. While natu- fine-turning smack too much of a “set-up” job. Take the ralism is continually validated by the scientific method, late Sir Fred Hoyle.

salvo spring 08 17 Hoyle, a mathematician and astronomer, once admit- wind, lest they cause someone’s sci-fi world to come apart ted that his atheism was shaken after realizing that the at the seams. energy levels of the carbon atom were precisely those required for carbon-based life. Hoyle’s conclusion? “A Fantastic Theories common sense interpretation of the facts suggests a super- While Hoyle’s panspermia is merely a fringe theory, anoth- intellect has monkeyed with the physics.” er has achieved a much more mainstream following. Over Common sense notwithstanding, Hoyle remained staunchly From a singular, irreproducible event, committed to natural- ism. To deal with the all of the matter in the universe seeming “superintel- lect” behind nature, materialized out of something that Hoyle and DNA co- discoverer Francis is neither physical nor material. Imagine a Crick devised a theory rivaling anything ever rabbit pulled out of a hat without the aid of imagined by H. G. Wells a hat or a magician, and you’ve got the gist. or Gene Roddenberry: Refuse containing the seeds of life was dis- tributed throughout the cosmos by an advanced extrater- the course of the last decade, the “multiverse” has become restrial civilization. (You can’t make this stuff up.) As to all the rage among the science illuminati. Its basic notion is how those super seeds and their master producers came that our world represents just one small part of a super- into existence—well, those are questions better left to the cosmos composed of an infinite number of universes,

the brights 0/ he name “bright” was coined by Chicagoan Paul Geisert in 2003. After attending the “Godless Americans March on Washington” in 2002, Geisert decided that he Tno longer liked the term “godless,” finding its connotations to be overly nega- tive when referring to those such as himself who subcribe to a naturalistic worldview. He claims to have settled on “bright” because he wanted to connect atheism with the Enlightenment and that period’s celebration of science and free inquiry. Prominent ma- terialists such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett immediately embraced the term, likening it to the word “gay,” which, according to Dawkins, is an “up” word for homo- sexuals that is “positive, warm, and cheerful.” Bright is a “noun hijacked from an adjec- tive, with its original meaning changed but not too much,“ he wrote in The Guardian. Such comments hint at another reason for the moniker as well. For despite their protes- tations to the contrary, the brights know full well what their self-appellation (its mean- ing changed but not too much) likewise implies: That as far as worldviews go, atheism is the smart person’s choice—the brilliant perspective on existence, as opposed to the dim-witted view held by religious believers.

18 salvo issue 5 the quantum Just to remain viable, naturalism emergence vacuum depends on no fewer than eight placeholders: self-organization virtual inflation the particles quantum macroevolution multiverse potential

ensuring that the intricate network of coincidences neces- quantum potential is an immaterial substrate that per- sary for life could be actualized in one of them. And you meates the cosmos, “giving life” and stability to matter. guessed it! We happen to inhabit the one universe where (If it weren’t for the quantum potential, an atom would life and human thought evolved. How’s that for ensuring implode within one microsecond due to the electromag- the cohesion of one’s worldview? netic attraction between its negatively charged shell and As to the birth of our cosmic home, the story goes its positively charged nucleus.) One way to look at it is that something like this: Before time and space, there existed the quantum potential is the omnipresent wellspring of the “quantum vacuum”—a mysterium devoid of matter being. Hmm. and energy, though brimming with “potentiality,” such It is hard to imagine a theory with more flair and that virtual (as opposed to real) particles were continu- charm. At the same time, however, the multiplication of ously popping in and out of existence under the radar of phenomena makes the materialistic narrative—contrary conservation laws. to the claim of advocates such as Phil—decidedly un- Out of this ineffable nothingness, a violent belch in parsimonious. the vacuum caused a colossal amount of energy to appear in a space much smaller than that of an atom. Instantly, A Little Comparison the subatomic nugget exploded, spewing forth all the Just to remain viable, naturalism depends on no fewer matter and energy of our fledgling universe. than eight placeholders: the quantum vacuum, virtual Before this growing newborn was overcome by particles, inflation, the multiverse, quantum potential, gravitational collapse, another strange thing happened: macroevolution, emergence, and self-organization. inflation. Inexplicably, something akin to antigravity Among these, the quantum vacuum, inflation, and kicked in, taking cosmic expansion into hyper-drive. The the multiverse have neither been observed nor are they expansion was so rapid that if the primordial nugget had theoretically verifiable (a charge, it will be noted, regularly been a piece of sand, it would have grown to the size of made against supernaturalism). The same goes for virtual the known universe within a trillionth of a second. At particles, which are exactly what their name implies— the same time, the rate and strength of inflation were in theoretical abstractions that “explain” the bizarre behav- perfect pitch to keep the Big Bang from becoming either a iors of real particles. Similarly, the quantum potential is a Big Crunch or a runaway explosion. label for “something” that mysteriously produces exotic By this exceptional process, the universe was “born” particles and holds the atom intact. That leaves the re- and placed on the razor’s edge between immediate an- maining three placeholders (macroevolution, emergence, nihilation and unending expansion, thus becoming the and self-organization) as likewise desperate—though birthing center of quarks, electrons, and muons—the admittedly clever—constructions used to keep a divine building blocks of matter. hand off the dials, which is all the more ironic in that a The upshot of this fantastic narrative? From that singu- divine hand requires far fewer speculations. lar, irreproducible event, all of the matter in the universe To account for the existence and structure of the uni- materialized out of something that is neither physical nor verse, a divine hand need only be invoked in two places: material. Imagine a rabbit pulled out of a hat without the beginning and the quantum realm of nature. Since the aid of a hat or a magician, and you’ve got the gist. It’s these two areas are intrinsically opaque to empirical inves- enough to make even Captain Kirk do a double take. tigation, a supernatural placeholder will have no inhibit- After this cosmic “nativity,” the equally speculative ing effect on future scientific inquiry or achievement. They processes of self-organization, emergence, macroevolu- can call it “sci-fi” apologetics if they wish, but the explana- tion, and memetics led to the arrival of DNA, the cell, tory power and parsimony of supernaturalism suggests multi-celled organisms, the human brain, thought, creativ- that the Brights—with a minimum of eight wistful devices ity, aspirations, and yearnings. Added to that was what’s to keep their naturalistic worldview intact—might need called the “quantum potential.” to rethink either their worldview or their presumptuous According to the Standard Model of physics, the name.

salvo spring 08 19 DiversityRANDOMRANDOM FFLAKLAK

20 salvo issue 5 Curriculum Mortae Sometimes Indoctrination Is a Matter of Life and Death By Karen Swallow Prior

n 2005, according to an annual survey of ing the posters, stickers, and fl yers promoting various causes that college freshmen by UCLA’s Higher Edu- adorned the other offi ce doors in my department, I engaged in cation Research Institute, “only” 54.5 some interior decorating of my own. Soon, half of the door to the percent of fi rst-year students agreed offi ce I shared with another graduate student was gilded with my that “abortion should be legal.” What cleverest pro-life propaganda. I had to admit that it looked a bit Ithis tells us is that when college kids fi rst arrive on odd next to the gay-themed fl yers on the other half of the door, campus, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with ideal- but hey, I thought, this is grad school, land of tolerance and ism, they exhibit a relative enthusiasm for life— diversity. that is, until the leftists and secularists who over- Unfortunately, my offi cemate didn’t agree. The pro-life signs whelm academia dig their claws into them. Once were “embarrassing,” she said. She didn’t want her students—or this happens, research indicates that even the worse, her professors—to think that she was “anti-choice.” (“So sizable minority who go so far as to actually count should I be worried about everyone thinking I was a lesbian?” I themselves pro-life is doomed to diminish. (And wondered.) My colleague resolved the problem the way all good this surely can’t be the result of learning per se, since virtually all of history’s great thinkers—from Hippocrates to Maimonides “Of 3,000 college women, 600 had to Mary Wollstonecraft—have pregnancy tests; 300 of these tests were opposed elective abortion.) A 1996 Gallup poll of wom- positive; and 6 women had babies.” en’s attitudes toward abortion showed that women with only a high-school education are more pro-life (47 liberals solve the problem of differing points of view: by silenc- percent) than pro-choice (37 percent). Among ing them. We “agreed” to denude the door and use only the women who attend college without complet- space above our own desks for personal expression. Such was my ing a four-year degree, the percentage who are welcome as an out-of-the-closet pro-lifer at a bastion of liberal pro-choice jumps to 59 percent. And among those learning. But this was merely a foreboding of even worse things to who complete a four-year degree, the percentage come. identifying themselves as pro-choice skyrockets Some years later, I served at the same university as advisor to to 73 percent. You can imagine what happens in graduate school. Actually, you don’t need to imag- ine what happens to pro-life attitudes in graduate 02 FACT FINDS school because I can tell you. ------2 A professor at the University of North Carolina recently told his students that parents who discover via amniocentesis that Signs of Life their unborn child has Down syndrome should have an abor- tion. Dr. Albert Harris explained during one of his classes on Having undergone a rather abrupt and atypical embryology that he knew “somebody who had a child like this, shift to the pro-life view the summer after com- and it ruined their life.” Studies show that up to 92 percent of pleting college, I entered my PhD program with unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. • all the enthusiasm of the newly converted. Notic-

salvo spring 08 21 the rate of abortion among women aged 20–24 is 47 abortions per 1,000 women. AGI indicates that the high abortion rate among these women reflects not only an above-average pregnancy rate (which might be expected for reasons both sociological and biological), but also a higher proportion than in other age groups of pregnan- cies ending in abortion (29 percent). Furthermore, while the abortion rate overall has been declining steadily—and fairly dramatically in recent years— this age group has seen markedly less decline than other groups: While between 1994 and 2000, the rate dropped by as much as 39 percent among teenagers, the rate changed by only 10 percent or less among women aged 20 or older. Anecdotal evidence paints an even starker a pro-life undergraduate club that, as part of a week of pro-life picture. At one campus in one year, according to activities on campus, sponsored a display of 4,400 white crosses figures provided by Feminists for Life of America memorializing the daily number of abortions in America. In re- (FFLA), “of 3,000 college women, 600 had preg- sponse, a student writer for a campus newspaper had this to say nancy tests; 300 of these tests were positive; and about us pro-lifers: 6 women had babies.” You don’t need sophisti- cated research to verify this phenomenon. You Now it’s up to us to fight back. If that means guarding need only spend some time on any college the clinic doors with Uzis, then that’s what will have to be campus—where, at least if Tom Wolfe and your done. Just once, I’d like to see someone blow up one of neighbor’s frat-boy son are to be believed, the their churches . . . If you see one of [the pro-life students] coeds are humping like bunnies—and just try to showing their disgusting videos or playing with toy fetus- find one visibly pregnant student. You might as es, do your part and spit at them. Kick them in the head. well look for health food at KFC. And the lack of Give them the name of your therapist. pregnant students on campus can’t be attributed to the wonders of contraception either, since ac- Fortunately, no physical harm was done to the pro-life cording to AGI, 54 percent of women who have students (or the churches) that week, but one-fourth of the crosses abortions used some form of contraception dur- in the display were vandalized. And while the university affirmed ing the month they became pregnant. So what is the free-speech rights of the newspaper columnist, the next time happening to all the pregnant women and their our pro-life group planned an event, our free speech came with a babies? price tag attached. Permission for another display, which had been Plainly—even taking into consideration granted through the proper administrative channels, was pulled students who might have miscarried or dropped by the university president, who demanded that we put up a hefty out of school—abortion is largely the answer to bond as “insurance” for any damage that might be inflicted by this question. Indeed, women aged 20–24 obtain opponents of the display. If this sounds unconstitutional—a minor 33 percent of all abortions, according to AGI. matter to radical liberals—it was. Our group sued the university, But significantly, 75 percent of women who have and although the school admitted no wrongdoing, it “agreed” in abortions report that they do so because continu- a settlement to pony up an amount many times that of the origi- ing the pregnancy would interfere with other nal bond and to change its policies so as to eliminate “viewpoint responsibilities, including school. And while many discrimination.” high schools have programs to assist pregnant and parenting girls, America’s colleges provide argu- ably the least supportive of any environment for a Facts of Life pregnant woman.

Of course, viewpoint discrimination isn’t the worst thing that can happen in an academic environment that’s hostile to the protec- Life Support tion of innocent human life. Although no studies on the rate of abortion among college students have been conducted, we do Recently, one college student faced firsthand not know that college-aged women obtain more abortions than any only the predicament that an unplanned pregnan- other age group. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), the research cy can bring, but also a glimpse into what it means arm of Planned Parenthood (America’s largest abortion provider to be pregnant on a typical campus where support and the most thorough keeper of abortion statistics), reports that for such students is nowhere to be found.

22 salvo issue 5 Spin Doctors rom whom do college women learn their pro-abortion attitudes? From their peers? From their professors? Perhaps. But it turns out Fthat campus counseling centers are also largely to blame. In Un- protected, her exposé on university health clinics, Dr. Miriam Grossman argues that the political correctness that has infi ltrated her profession (she is a psychiatrist at UCLA) is brainwashing students into unhealthy perspectives on sexuality. “Not long ago, a psychiatrist might call casual sexual activity ‘mindless’ and ‘empty,’” she writes.

Now young people are advised to use latex, and have a limited number of partners (as opposed to unlimited?). There is tacit ap- proval of promiscuity and experimentation: one study of college students speaks of “primary and casual sex partners.” Infection with one of the sexually transmitted viruses is a rite of passage; it comes with the territory. Abortion is the removal of unwanted tissue, sort of like a tonsillectomy.

Such changes, says Grossman, are the result of “social agendas foist- ed on the campus community.” Most college counselors see themselves as much more than mental-health professionals; they likewise “see their jobs as an avenue for activism, and one of their goals is to infl u- ence your child.” The nature of that infl uence? According to Grossman, “kids are deprived of facts they need to make informed decisions, while risky behaviors are sanctioned.” And those risky behaviors too often lead to pregnancy, the recommended treatment for which—at least as far as most college health advisors are concerned—is abortion. Indeed, Grossman contends that a big reason why 52 percent of the one million abortions performed each year are on single women under the age of 25 is that such women are likely to be college students who have access to the “free” advice proffered by their campus health clinics.

Shortly after completing an internship at My struggles continued after my visit to health services. FFLA, Chaunie found her strong pro-life stance put I gathered all the information I could fi nd about student to the ultimate test. At the campus health clinic insurance. Not one plan covered pregnancy. In fact, all of where her pregnancy was confi rmed, Chaunie them specifi cally stated that they would not cover preg- was left sitting alone in a chair, she says, “crying nancy. Though the university used to have daycare on hysterically while the nurse examined her chart.” campus, I learned the President got rid of it a few years As Chaunie reports on the FFLA website, “after ago. Housing was another disappointment; once again, a minute or two,” the nurse “stood up and said, the university used to have family housing but dissolved ‘I have other patients to see, you can stay here if those dorms for the better-paying fi rst-year students. I you want.’ She left me crying and alone to see the have to tell you, as president of my college pro-life group only other patient in the center, a young man with and an active advocate for women, it was frightening to a sore throat.” see the complete lack of resources and support available Despite her pro-life views and a supportive for pregnant and parenting students at my school. family, Chaunie admits that she felt the same kind of fear and pressure that drive many women in Despite fi nding herself in an academic environment hostile to her her situation to choose abortion. These feelings choice to have her baby, Chaunie—now married to the father of were only exacerbated over the following weeks her baby—is still in school and nearing her child’s birth. Clearly, her as she discovered the lack of any tangible sup- choice to have a child in such a climate is no less than a revolution- port for pregnant students on her college campus. ary act. Chaunie reports: Viva la revolución!

salvo spring 08 23 STANDARD OPS: qOperation ID

short, a chance cause presupposes an intended one. Having established this, Aristotle then turns specifically Aristotle thus maintains that if nothing happened by intelligence to Empedocles’s belief that chance is the cause of things that occur in nature: or natural cause, there could be no chance occurrence. In short, a chance cause presupposes an intended one. [F]or example, our teeth arising from necessity, the front ones sharp and fitted for cutting, the molars flat and useful for grinding the food, though not coming to be for the sake of this, but just by coinci- dence? And similarly in the cases of the other parts which seem to be for the sake of something. Wher- ever, therefore, everything comes together as if it were for the sake of something, these were saved, being constituted by chance in a fitting manner. But whatever was not of this sort was destroyed and is destroyed, as Empedocles says happened to Fat Chance! man-faced ox-progeny. Even the Father of Science Knew “It is impossible that this is the way things are,” argues Aristotle. “For those things are natural which, by a continu- There Was Nothing Lucky About ous movement originated from an internal principle, arrive the Universe at some completion.” In other words, when something has a predictable end—when according to its essence it By E. William Sockey III brings itself to fruition in the same way most or all of the time—it can’t have happened by chance because chance is hose who argue against intelligent design main- purposeless and thus has no end toward which it is striving. tain that the theory is based on religious faith It can’t be by chance that an acorn becomes an oak tree, for rather than science and therefore has no place in example, because all oak trees grow from acorns, and they a school’s science curriculum. In fact, intelligent do so all the time. design was first posited as a principle of natural The same goes for our teeth. As Aristotle notes above, Tscience by Aristotle—the father of the scientific method— they are virtually identical in all individuals and almost in the fourth century B.C. always develop perfectly toward their purposeful end: In Chapters 4 through 6 of Book II of his Physics, namely, biting and chewing. If chance were truly at work, Aristotle examines chance as the possible cause of things then at some point this cycle would break (sooner than that occur in nature. As is his habit, he subjects the topic to later), revealing that what seemed designed for an end rigorous logic as applied to the observed facts (Aristotle is had another cause entirely. This leaves intention as the only also the father of logic as a science). Referring to the asser- remaining explanation for natural occurrences. tion of Empedocles that the parts of animals came to be by And Aristotle says it is strange to argue that there is no chance, Aristotle says that “there are some who say chance intelligent design in nature simply because the designer is is the cause of the heavens and of everything in the cosmos. not seen. He points out that the artist is not always seen For they say that the vortex and the motion which sepa- making his work of art, but this doesn’t raise questions rated and arranged the all into this order are from chance.” about his existence (the “watch found in the desert” argu- He then proceeds to explain why this cannot be the case. ment of our day). To say that natural things come to be by Aristotle observes that whatever happens by chance chance contradicts both our experience and our reason. occurs in the same way as that which happens by intelli- Simply put, nature works in a rational, repeatable, and gence or by nature, except that its cause is something other seemingly preplanned fashion when producing living things than intelligence or nature. Indeed, chance occurrences get and their parts. “But of not one of the results of chance noticed precisely because they happen just as if they were or spontaneity is this true,” argues Aristotle. Keep in mind intended or were the result of natural causes. For example, that he argues not on the basis of spiritual belief, but in a flipped coin landing on its edge three times in a row is deference to logic alone. The theory of evolution by blind striking because it seems to have happened as though it material causes, on the other hand, ignores where such log- were planned—either that or as though it were the result ic points, explaining away such evidence with unfounded a of a natural cause such as magnetic attraction. Aristotle priori assumptions—assumptions, incidentally, that bear a thus maintains that if nothing happened by intelligence stronger resemblance to religious faith than to dispassion- or natural cause, there could be no chance occurrence. In ate scientific deduction.

24 salvo issue 5 Aristotle thus maintains that if nothing happened by intelligence or natural cause, there could be no chance occurrence. In short, a chance cause presupposes an intended one.

The galaxy NGC 1672. Approximately 60 million light-years (18 megaparsecs) away. DISPATCHES Pick Your Poison Academic Bias Is Ubiquitous, but Choosing the Right College Can Minimize the Damage By Les Sillars and John Basie 444

26 salvo issue 5 e wish we could say, without reservation, that these are the “Ten Best Colleges” and the “Ten Worst Colleges” in the coun- try, but that wouldn’t be fair. What would we mean, exactly, by “best” and “worst”? These things are difficult to quantify, and even though we deplore relativism as a philosophy, the “best” college for a given student depends largely on his needs and circumstances. Not everybody should go to Princeton. W We also suspect that somewhere in the country lurk obscure little schools with more promiscuous campus atmospheres than that at Oberlin College or more oppressive stu- dent-life indoctrination programs than the University of Delaware’s recently abandoned debacle, but it’s hard to know. It’s hard even to imagine such things, but they’re possible. We offer instead “Ten Decent Colleges” and explain briefly what makes them relatively safe. Such a list begs for a counterpart, so we included “Ten Deplorable Colleges” as well, along with our reasons for recommending that they be avoided. We hope that readers find our lists useful, not merely in a “thumbs-up/thumbs-down” sort of way, but as a guide to factors to consider when assessing a recruiting video, promotional pamphlet, or fund- raising phone call. We’ll add that even outstanding colleges have some professors and programs that stink. Similarly, on even the most stiflingly politically-correct campuses, there may be pro- fessors who are rays of hope, enlightened learning, and common sense. Our choice for “Worst Elite College”—Amherst—is the perfect example. Among its faculty is political- philosophy professor Hadley P. Arkes, an eloquent pro-life advocate, scholar, and leading observer of how the interplay of law, media, and presidential leadership can change a culture. Likewise, there are, we’re sure, many devout Catholics at the College of the Holy Cross, our choice for “Least Faithful to Religious Heritage.” Here’s our list of the qualities of a great college: academically rigorous, intellectually stimulating, philosophically coherent, respectful of the Western tradition, pro-liberal arts, and sane in terms of campus atmosphere (not rife with drugs, sex, bizarre lifestyles, and the like). We also value genuine intellectual diversity, bounded by rational limits and com- munity standards; for example, a religious college, by its very nature, can and should hire faculty who support the institution’s statements of faith and mission. Further, we value highly a campus ethos that encourages the free exchange of ideas. Feel free to disagree. 4

salvo spring 08 27 generally avoid politicizing the classroom. The ability to defend ideas outweighs politics. With its sterling academic reputation, a nearly $13.5 billion endowment, and ten times more applications than admissions, Princeton has 10 Decent Colleges enough going for it to keep it on track for a while. •

-Most Faithful to Religious Heritage -Best Elite College Biola University Princeton University La Mirada, CA ( www.biola.edu ) Princeton, NJ ( www.princeton.edu ) aced with a choice between a theologically sound faculty candidate with a lackluster degree and a ounded in 1746 by New Jersey Presbyterians, candidate from Yale with uncertain theology, most Princeton has regularly taken the top spot (or close Freligious schools for the past century went for aca- to it) in US News and World Report for years. It is demic respectability. The newcomers, as they rose through Fnow an elite research university (PhD-producing) the ranks, tended to hire more professors like themselves that takes care to nurture the quality undergraduate and, eventually, the college’s religious identity became education that defined it from its founding. It has a tiny history. 5:1 student/faculty ratio, and 72 percent of all Princeton Biola University (founded as the Bible Institute of Los classes have twenty or fewer students. Real learning can Angeles in 1908) has declined to make that trade-off, and does happen in these classes, unlike the “pack ‘em in,” due to a rigorous faculty-screening process that assesses movie-theatre-style seminars at many institutions. Prince- spiritual as well as academic qualifications. This hasn’t hurt ton has no required core curriculum, but there is a respect- Biola’s academic programs. US News & World Report rec- able set of distribution requirements that ensures a broad ognizes it as a “national university,” the only member of education, including a rigorous freshman writing seminar. the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities to earn Recent grade-deflation policies at the university have that rank. Its Torrey Honors Institute combines a Great made students anxious (departments are permitted to give Books approach with a distinctive classical, Protestant only a certain number of As), but at least grade inflation is ethos. All graduates complete 30 credits of Bible, theol- under control. Well over 90 percent of Princeton students ogy, and church history (the equivalent of a major in Bible) still graduate. The faculty is intellectually diverse, with in addition to the requirements of their majors. More im- infanticide advocate and animal-rights defender Peter portantly, they “believe that there is truth,” according to Singer on the one hand and conservative Christian political Biola’s statement of values, and that “it is knowable and philosopher Robert George on the other, but professors revealed in God’s inerrant Word. As a result we can live with unshakeable confidence and hope knowing that the Bible and God’s truth have direct application to our lives, our work, our relationships and the culture around us.” •

-Best Non-traditional Student Work Program College of the Ozarks Point Lookout, MO ( www.cofo.edu )

mong the handful of work-study colleges in the U.S., College of the Ozarks stands out. Founded in 1906 as a high school for students “without Asufficient means,” the school still caters to stu- dents from low-income backgrounds in the hard-scrabble

28 salvo issue 5 hills of southern Missouri and nearby states. Students pay provide limited financial help; only 33 percent of Grove no tuition out of pocket, instead working fifteen hours City’s students receive financial aid. Still, given Grove City’s per week at the school’s farm, radio station, lodge, res- academic quality, a student is far better served paying the taurant, Child Development Center, Ralph Foster Museum, full price at Grove City than accepting a flattering $20,000 McDonald Hospital, or dozens of other placements. But scholarship that comes with a bill for another $15,000. • graduating debt-free is no advantage if you don’t learn anything. The school offers 30 majors in traditional liberal- arts disciplines, as well as several related to campus busi- nesses, such as agriculture, graphic arts, and accounting. “Hand in hand with an excellent liberal arts education,” says the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI) All-American Colleges, “students learn lessons about the worth and dig- nity of work, personal responsibility, and free enterprise at this impressive, blue-collar academy.” •

-Best Value Grove City College Grove City, PA ( www.gcc.edu )

rove City College accepts no federal funding, has a great humanities core curriculum, pro- vides each student with a laptop and a color Gprinter, offers a sane student-life environment, and has earned a national reputation for strong academic - programs. It provides all this to students (tuition, room, Best Math/Sciences/ and board) for about $17,600 per year. Most elite private Engineering College colleges cost well over $35,000, and some run into the mid-$40,000 range. US News & World Report has named Grove City the “#1 Best Value” college for five years run- Massachusetts Institute ning; ISI includes it in its list of 50 All-American Colleges; and The Princeton Review includes it on its list of “Amer- of Technology ica’s Best Value Colleges.” Prospective students should be Cambridge, MA ( www.mit.edu ) aware, however, that setting tuition rates is a bit of a mar- keting game. In a practice known as “tuition discounting,” IT places relatively little emphasis on the most colleges set tuition rates fairly high and then offer liberal arts—the school’s mission statement substantial aid packages based either on need or merit makes no mention of the humanities—but to the majority of their students. Others, such as Grove Mits humanities requirements are stronger City, attract applicants with a low sticker price and then than those at many liberal-arts colleges. US News & World Report has named MIT the top engineering school in the country for both undergraduate and graduate educa- tion every year since 1988. The course load is infamously demanding, the faculty boasts seven Nobel Prize winners among its current faculty, and MIT is famous for an un- dergraduate/faculty-collaboration research program that has students working on everything from curing cancer to developing alternative energy sources. The campus atmo- sphere leans moderate, but it is open to many viewpoints, and classrooms are not generally politicized. The campus is also home to about 250 student organizations, some quite energetic. The Boston Globe Magazine reported a few years ago that there are 30 religious groups active on campus, including fifteen for Evangelicals alone. “When I came to MIT, I was expecting it to be full of nerds—people

salvo spring 08 29 who don’t really put together science and religion,” said expression of political or ideological bias in interpretation one senior member of the Evangelical group Chi Alpha. “I is to some degree unavoidable, it does not stifle or shut was really surprised—and still am—by the volume of Chris- out competing views.” • tian fellowship here.” •

-Best Learning Environment -Best Research University Hampden-Sydney University of Chicago Chicago, IL ( www.beta.uchicago.edu ) College Hampden-Sydney, VA ( www.hsc.edu ) hile not immune to the radical politics and multicultural dogma that’s ubiquitous else- t’s not just that Hampden-Sydney is one of three where, Chicago has managed to preserve, male-only colleges left in the U.S.; rather, a single-sex W mostly, its famously rigorous and compre- campus reduces distractions, and Hampden-Sydney hensive liberal-arts core curriculum, widely considered Imakes the most of its students’ attention. The institu- the best in the world. Chicago counts among faculty and tion was founded during the American Revolution and graduates 81 Nobel laureates (seven are current faculty), has maintained its men-only admissions policy ever since. 44 Rhodes scholars (six in the last three years), and 14 Happily, since 1775, it has kept a character-building honor National Medal of Science recipients. Chicago scholars code, a rigorous core, and a solid liberal-arts focus in the have, among other things, discovered black holes, proved curriculum. Its founding mission is still the same today, that cancer is a genetic disease, and revolutionized the which is to “form good men and good citizens in an atmo- way economists analyze policy. Students committed to the sphere of sound learning.” Hampden-Sydney’s teaching extremely intense academic environment may take classes faculty gets the lion’s share of the credit. The 10:1 student with professors doing cutting-edge research, who are, by to faculty ratio and small student body of 1,100 allows for research-university standards, unusually accessible. In 2007, individualized attention, and most students quickly figure The Princeton Review’s “Best 361 Colleges” named it the out that the professors don’t let them get away with hid- “Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates.” ing in the back of the classroom. We found plenty of evi- Perhaps best of all, while the faculty leans liberal, Chica- dence of quality teaching and mentoring through student go’s ethos is generally committed to free inquiry. “Sharply comments and scores posted at ratemyprofessors.com, and politicized classrooms are essentially nonexistent at Chi- the school has made The Princeton Review’s top-twenty list cago,” asserts Choosing the Right College, “and while the for highest-rated professors. •

-Best Core Curriculum Thomas Aquinas College Santa Paula, CA ( www.thomasaquinas.edu )

here aren’t many institutions left whose DNA is truly liberal arts, but Thomas Aquinas (TAC) is one of them. The whole TAC curriculum is “core” Tin the sense that there are no majors, minors, or electives. All students take the same four-year course of study, which includes theology, philosophy, natural science, mathematics, Latin, and music. Each semester, students read and dialogue socratically over works by Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Plutarch, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and Pascal. TAC employs a tried and true Great Books program on the assumption that an education in

30 salvo issue 5 key classics is better than one based on trendy scholarship Schlueter said. Graduates regularly find employment in the and ideas that are shelved ten years after they make the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, headlines. With a student to faculty ratio of 10:1 and all the US Department of Education, the Foundation for Inde- classes having fewer than twenty students, there is lots of pendent Higher Education, Americans for Prosperity, and opportunity for individualized attention from professors. the Federalist Society. • The absence of a “Greek” life provides a relatively distrac- tion-free study environment. • -Best Integration of Sports and Academics Wheaton College Wheaton, IL ( www.wheaton.edu )

s a NCAA division III school in the CCIW confer- ence (College Conference of Illinois and Wiscon- sin), Wheaton offers no athletic scholarships. AStudents are students first, then athletes. Men’s teams include basketball, cross country, football, golf, soccer, swimming, tennis, track and field, and wrestling. Women’s teams include basketball, cross country, golf, soc- cer, softball, swimming, tennis, track and field, volleyball, and water polo. Over the last ten years, Wheaton athletic teams have won 64 conference championships, several national team championships, and numerous All-Ameri- can awards, reports Wheaton athletic director Tony Ladd. He adds, however, that winning is not the ultimate goal. The development of faith, character, and leadership is. - Ladd also points out that the “profile of student athletes Best for Civic Education matches that of the student body as a whole—in admis- sions criteria, grade-point average, and graduation rates.” Hillsdale College Comparing Wheaton athletics to an NCAA-I school such as Hillsdale, MI ( www.hillsdale.edu ) the University of Illinois, which offers full-rides to athletes, is comparing apples with oranges. For one thing, you prob- ounded in 1844, Hillsdale College’s educational ably won’t find this kind of parity in admissions criteria or mission rests on two principles: academic excel- high GPAs on the Fighting Illini. But if you’re looking for lence and institutional independence. The college hardworking, character-building teams with a tradition of Faccepts no federal or state subsidies of any kind. winning—where athletes take academics and leadership The mission statement reads: “The College considers development seriously—Wheaton College is a fine choice. • itself a trustee of modern man’s intellectual and spiritual inheritance from the Judeo-Christian faith and Greco- Roman culture, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law.” Of the learning environment, Hillsdale political-science professor Nathan Schlueter told Salvo, “I don’t know of a place which has a higher percentage of talented and dedicated teachers and of bright students who are ea- ger to learn. The atmosphere is solidly conservative and Christian, but also more diverse than most other places. This makes it an exciting place to be. One regularly hears students engaging in heated discussions of the relative merits of libertarianism versus traditionalism, Protestant- ism versus Catholicism, and so on.” What’s the payoff? Being an active and virtuous citizen, for one thing. “Many of our students go into public service after graduation,”

salvo spring 08 31

10 Deplorable Colleges

Worst Speech Code to choose. The slide away from a core curriculum began back in 1850, when president Francis Wayland argued that Tufts University every student should be able to “study what he chose, all Medford, MA ( www.tufts.edu ) that he chose, and nothing but what he chose.” Brown founded “The New Curriculum,” a 1969 innovation that, ounded in 1852, Tufts prides itself on having according to the Brown website, “gave students the right helped to establish the nation’s first community- to choose, the right to fail, and above all the freedom to health clinic, the football “huddle,” and the Reach direct their own education.” Silly us; we imagined it was Ftoothbrush, but its willingness to abridge basic First the professors’ job to direct their students’ education. The Amendment freedoms is no innovation to be proud of. Its mantras of “freedom” and “choice” have become such speech code prohibits, for example, “using demeaning or well-worn grooves with many students that they blasted derogatory slurs relating to group identity,” “responding Dean of the College Katherine Bergeron for merely trying to behavior or situations differently because of the race, to assess the curriculum’s effectiveness. With regard to the gender, or sexual identity of the participants,” “making Task Force on Undergraduate Education, one writer for jokes about others’ backgrounds,” “imitating stereotypi- The Brown Daily Herald accused Bergeron of restructuring cal speech or mannerisms,” and “attributing objections to the college’s administration in a way that cut “against the any of the above to the ‘hypersensitivity’ of others who free-form spirit of the New Curriculum . . . any departures feel hurt.” Seriously. Last year, the Tufts administration from [Brown’s unique educational] philosophy stand to was criticized for micromanaging a conservative student leave the student body feeling betrayed and alienated.” paper based on complaints from minority groups that No doubt he’s right. • were offended by an anonymous satirical piece. The free- speech watchdog group Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) gives Tufts a “red light.” • Worst Elite College

Worst Core Amherst College Amherst, MA ( www.amherst.edu ) Brown University f all the top-tier American institutions, this one Providence, RI ( www.brown.edu ) really takes the cake. Amherst has no core or distribution requirements—a fact that plays t most universities today, the idea of a core Oin its favor in this age of careerism and un- curriculum is a myth from a bygone era. Still, restrained “choice” at the educational smorgasbord. Its Brown stands out. Coming from a rich Baptist faculty and staff are notoriously left-leaning, undermin- Atradition and a history of excellence in educat- ing genuine intellectual diversity. One of us (Basie) visited ing citizens for the common good, the Ivy League school Amherst some years ago to recruit conservative religious now has the “you-are-the-captain-of-your-own-ship” type students to a Washington, D.C. internship program and of curriculum that encourages an unfettered commitment was all but escorted off campus by faculty and staff. As to individualism. Put simply, Brown has no core curriculum one professor told Choosing the Right College, the intel- or even any distribution requirements. Not to fret, be- lectual firepower of the professors and students is impres- cause students do have approximately 2,000 courses and sive, but “the most disappointing things about Amherst at least 100 standard areas of concentration from which are its cultural degeneration (as shown by its ‘Orgasm

32 salvo issue 5 Workshops’), arrogance, elitism, and stifling political cor- that featured contraception and abortion pushers Planned rectness.” The student Democratic club is alive and well, Parenthood and NARAL (Pro-Choice America). President while the College Republicans are scarcely visible. Student Fr. Michael McFarland insisted to the student newspaper life at Amherst is marked by Division-III sports, permissive that renting the facilities did not imply endorsement of dorm culture, drinking, drinking, and more drinking, not the presenters, and that the college “fully affirms and to mention at least 100 student organizations, such as promotes Catholic teaching on abortion and the sanctity QUAC, a “lesbian and bi women discussion group,” which of all human life.” Perhaps, but if the NAACP rented out “meet[s] once a week to discuss fun topics and serious top- its front lawn to the Klan for a cross-burning every sum- ics involving being a queer woman.” • mer, one might wonder how committed it really was to its founding principles. •

Worst for Civic Education Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD ( www.jhu.edu )

o find out whether American universities pre- pare students to become informed and engaged citizens (on the premise that, as the Founders Tunderstood, citizens cannot be both ignorant and free), the Intercollegiate Studies Institute surveyed 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges for their knowledge of American government, history, and economics. The results were dismal. Not only did the students as a whole Least Faithful to produce failing scores, but seniors from sixteen colleges Religious Heritage knew less about basic American civics than freshmen at the same colleges. At the very bottom was Johns Hop- kins. Its seniors scored 7.3 percent worse than its fresh- College of men. Negative learning, anyone? Johns Hopkins students unquestionably learn a lot; it is widely recognized as one the Holy Cross of the world’s premier research universities. At many other Worcester, MA ( www.holycross.edu ) American colleges, we suspect, many students learn nei- ther civics nor much of anything else. However, this focus he classic examples of colleges that abandoned on research fosters an atmosphere that places scientific their religious heritage are Harvard and Yale, and empirical ways of knowing above the ideas that make founded in 1636 and 1701, respectively, as training democracy possible. At some point, a democratic society Tschools for Protestant ministers. But Harvard and will pay a steep price for ignoring basic questions. Johns Yale dropped any pretence of faithfulness long ago; Holy Hopkins isn’t helping. • Cross still presents itself as a Jesuit college that educates “men and women for others,” with a focus on service. Translated, this means that while Holy Cross wants to market itself as genuinely Catholic, it declines to submit to the historic standards of the Society of Jesus. In practice, this means that it never requires students to take a course on Catholicism or even Christianity, while it has sanctioned student chapters of two pro-gay groups (making Holy Cross “the only Jesuit University [that we know of, at least] to have both an ABiGaLe [Association of Bisexuals, Gays, and Lesbians] and an Allies group,” bubbles the AbiGaLe website), and last fall, for the sixth consecutive year, it rented out a ballroom for a teen-pregnancy conference

salvo spring 08 33 at Oxford that “the Jews are not a nation. . . . The Jewish state is a racist state that does not have a right to exist.” Professor Nicholas De Genova, who once said that “US patriotism is inseparable from imperial warfare and white supremacy,” epitomizes the radical anti-American senti- ment at Columbia. •

Most Sexualized Campus Oberlin College Oberlin, OH ( www.oberlin.edu )

he field was crowded, but we went with the col- lege that embraces licentiousness with pride. In 2005, Oberlin’s student newspaper described the Tannual “Safer Sex Night” as “one of the highlights of the Oberlin experience. Here’s the hook—hundreds of sweaty, mostly naked people get together and party. . . . You’ll almost definitely see someone you vaguely know from class in a candy thong with condoms taped over their nipples. . . . The demos, the porn, the free condoms, it’s Most Radicalized Faculty all educational.” Other sources describe staff members demonstrating contraceptive devices and sex “educa- Columbia University tion” videos showing on overhead monitors. The college’s New York, NY ( www.columbia.edu ) student-run Sexual Information Center, whose cartoon mascot is a cheerful-looking set of male genitals holding a used condom, offers “safer sex supplies and other sexual rofessors committed to radical Marxism, socialist health products to the community at no mark-up,” as well feminism, and other such constructions tend to as “referrals and rides to low cost sexual health and fam- congregate as they move up the academic hier- ily planning clinics”—that is, abortion providers. Oberlin Parchy. At the top of the food chain sits Columbia has no single-sex dorms, but rather, as Choosing the Right University. Harvard University’s faculty, who forced out College explains, at the start of the year each hall votes on former president Lawrence Summers in 2005 for suggest- whether to make the bathroom “females only,” “males ing that men and women might have different “apti- only,” “everyone,” “just me,” “just females (/males),” tudes” for science, would have been a good choice for this female- (/male-) bodied persons,” or “female- (/male-) category. Similarly, the 88 Duke faculty members who put identifying persons.” Confused? It’s all educational. • a full-page ad in the Chronicle of Higher Education last year praising campus protestors who hurled death threats at and otherwise harassed white lacrosse players accused (wrongly, it turned out—so much for due process) of sexu- Most Oppressive Student- ally assaulting an African-American stripper also mer- Life Indoctrination Program ited serious consideration. However, Columbia earns the award for having nine faculty members named in David Horowitz’s 2006 book The Professors: The 101 Most Dan- University of Delaware gerous Academics in America. No other school had more Newark, DE ( www.udel.edu ) than four. Horowitz emphasized that his book was not in- tended to be a “blacklist” of radical Marxists and feminists; he University of Delaware’s (UD) president, Patrick rather, it was meant to identify professors who had “sup- Harker, suspended the school’s ResLife program planted scholarly interests with political agendas, and cor- after the Foundation for Individual Rights in rupted intellectual discourse in the process.” Judging from TEducation (FIRE) outed it last fall, but it was so the backlash, this distinction was apparently lost on his bad that we had to mention it. According to FIRE, about subjects. The list of Columbia—uh—”honorees” includes “7,000 students living in dorms were required to attend several anti-Israel activists, such as Professor of Middle East training sessions, floor meetings, and even one-on-one studies Joseph Massad, who in 2002 said during a speech sessions with student Resident Assistants (RAs) where they

34 salvo issue 5 were pressured to comply with university-approved views knew that coeds were at risk of sexual harassment by foot- on issues such as politics, sexuality, and moral philosophy. ball players but turned a blind eye to the problem. The UD’s program tried to erase the personal viewpoints held university settled the case with its pocketbook. We picked by individual students—those that make a student body CU because we had to pick somebody, but the reality is truly diverse—and replace them with what the university that at hundreds of institutions, the tail (athletics) wags deemed a ‘correct’ ideology.” University training materials the dog (academics). The proper question for prospective referred to these one-on-one sessions as “treatments,” and students and alumni donors is not “Do the teams win?” they involved such questions as “When did you discover but “What is the role of sports at this institution?” If you your sexual identity?” RAs also had to attend “diversity can find a major-college sports program that doesn’t rou- facilitation meetings,” where they were taught univer- tinely subordinate its athletes’ academic well-being to the sity-sanctioned views, including, “[a] racist is one who is school’s win-loss record, let us know. • privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality.” In plain language, all white people are racist. Harker “terminated” the program but never repudiated it, nor has there been word that the people who designed and implemented it have been dismissed. Hmmm. Tom Wood of the National Association of Scholars suggests on the NAS website that such programs have become increas- ingly common in the last few decades as student-life de- partments, intent on shaping the campus community, have exploded in size, influence, and ambition. •

Worst Learning Environment University of Florida Gainesville, FL ( www.ufl.edu )

undreds of schools deserve a mention, but the University of Florida (UF) makes the list of “Top Ten Party Schools” in The Princeton Review year Hafter year. Students who really want to learn must navigate their way through a morass of trivial and politicized courses (such as “Ecofeminism” and “Seminar in Gay and Lesbian Literature”) and, most of all, the par- Worst Sports Debacle ties, which go far beyond tailgating during the Gators’ football season. UF has fought being perceived as a “party University of Colorado school” for some time, but “weekends at the University of Florida unofficially [still] begin on Wednesdays,” says USA at Boulder Today. One last thing: At least one UF student discovered Boulder, CO ( www.colorado.edu ) last year that the learning experience on campus some- times requires a taser flack jacket. As captured in a now infamous YouTube video, this individual learned the hard n December, the University of Colorado (CU) shelled way that the interrogation of Democratic senators can re- out over $3 million to settle a sexual harassment case sult in quite painful consequences. “Don’t tase me, bro!” • that had been pending since 2001. Two women— Iallegedly exotic dancers who had been hired for a party—claimed they had been gang-raped by members of the CU football team, and argued further that officials -

salvo spring 08 35 SPECIAL FORCES //de.program_with Denyse O’Leary The Truth Hurts Following the Evidence to Career Oblivion

first met Guillermo Gonzalez in a hotel coffee shop in that it is anti-evolution. In fact, the movie says nothing June 2005, the morning after the Smithsonian screen- about evolution and assumes standard origin dates for the ing of The Privileged Planet. This controversial film, Earth and the universe, both of which Gonzalez emphati- based on Gonzalez’s book of the same name (co- cally accepts. Yet, the Times article was enough to cause so authored with Jay Richards), advances the view that many Darwin zealots to besiege the Smithsonian that the Ithe Earth is one lucky planet in terms of sustaining life, as institution withdrew co-sponsorship of the film. well as unusually well-located for exploring our galaxy. Anne Applebaum of The Washington Post weighed Gonzalez is quite appreciative of this latter qual- in on the debate, claiming that The Privileged Planet was ity. Apart from his recent marriage, exploring the galaxy a “religious” film, a view that Gonzalez says he doesn’t pretty much sums up his life. After all, it was not long after understand. He recalls that he tried to reason with her, but arriving in the United States as a young Cuban refugee “it was like talking to a wall, like talking to a post.” that he first discovered astronomy. “People who are into The Privileged Planet takes on the assertion of popu- astronomy get into it very early,” he likes to explain. “It’s lar-astronomy saint Carl Sagan that Earth is merely a “pale such a beautiful science.” blue dot”—both insignificant and wholly unremarkable. It Gonzalez had more than an interest in astronomy; clearly explains Sagan’s arguments for such, and then pro- he had a gift. He quickly became a recognized expert in vides overwhelming evidence that they are false. Gonzalez exoplanets—planets that orbit stars other than our sun. He thought that in doing so, his film was merely setting the published paper after paper, never realizing how much he science record straight. was hated at Iowa State University—based solely on The Privileged Planet. To the elite, “religion” is okay if you just Why is this film so controversial? Partly stupid-holler for Jesus. But it is dangerous if on account of the false accusation, published you provide evidence against materialism. by The New York Times,

36 salvo issue 5 But no. For the secular elite, Gonzalez—a Christian— based explicitly on his support for design in the universe, is a dangerous heretic. He was dissing St. Carl in his own not on his performance. One email read: “Do we do ev- church, the Smithsonian. To the elite, “religion” is okay if erything at secret meetings and then hope the Discovery you just stupid-holler for Jesus. But it is dangerous if you Institute’s lawyers don’t subpoena our records?” Nonethe- provide evidence against materialism. less, the Board of Regents for Iowa refused to consider the After our meeting, Gonzalez went back to Iowa State emails as evidence and turned down Gonzalez’s appeal. So University and continued to study the exoplanets. He then the brilliant young astronomer is looking for a job. applied for tenure. Despite his many publications, he was For me, the telling feature of this story is not Gon- turned down. The university made an elaborate case that zalez’s fate. Materialism eats talented children; that is he did not qualify. As the controversy grew, even the uni- its nature. No, the telling feature is the steady stream of versity president got involved, assuring all that Gonzalez mediocrities who write to me and demand that I recognize was justly denied. The only problem was that the univer- that Gonzalez does not deserve tenure. sity’s case didn’t make sense. For example, the fact that As a journalist, I try to be evenhanded, but I struggle Gonzalez published an astronomy textbook was character- with a profound distaste for these people. It was not ized as an unwise use of his time. enough for them to watch a man’s career destroyed As it happens, official emails were exchanged prior to because his research showed the flaws in their narrow, the decision. The Discovery Institute made a public-records science-stopping materialist creed. No, they also feel the request for the emails, and they were eventually published need to defame him. These people—not that they would by Lisa Rossi of the Des Moines Register. This correspon- know it, of course—are a standing indictment of mate- dence made it clear that the decision to deny tenure to rialism. Their vicious comments are their odious legacy, Gonzalez (the equivalent of being fired in academia) was whereas Gonzalez’s research is his.

Religious Persecution

n 2004, Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards published The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery. The book was Ia side project for Gonzalez—a break from his usual work in the area of exo- planets (with over 60 peer-reviewed scientific articles to his credit), as well as a departure from the topics of his classroom astronomy lectures. So why did it get him into so much trouble? What dangerous idea did this single book advance that would justify the undermining of all that Gonzalez had accomplished as an astronomer? Put simply, it refuted the Copernican Principle—the belief that there is nothing special about the Earth or its inhabitants. By revealing that our planet is not only perfectly arranged to sustain a wide variety of life, but that it is likewise perfectly situated to offer us an unmatched view of the surrounding universe, Gonzalez and Richards called into question this cherished materialist belief, which dates all the way back to Galileo, and now Gonzalez is paying the price. And here’s where the irony kicks in. During the Inquisition, Galileo was apprehended and held under house arrest for his championing of Copernicanism, a story that Darwin- ists love to trot out any time they want to demonstrate how religion inhibits scientific progress. But today it’s the materialists who are inhibiting scientific progress and an anti-Copernican scientist who is suffering the religious persecution, this time at the hands of the very materialist zealots who count Galileo’s iconoclasm as scientifically heroic.

salvo spring 08 37 RANDOM FLAK

Standard Deviation Why We Should Diverge from College Credentialism by Doug Large

38 salvo issue 5 “I’ve never let my schooling interfere with my education.” —Mark Twain

n the 1700s, the British government offered today’s equiv- the music store, all the degrees in the alent of $6 million to anyone who could solve the lead- world do not guarantee proficiency. So is this system fatally flawed? Let’s ing financial, military, and scientific problem of the day: look at two more examples. determining global longitude. The greatest minds of the Marilee Jones was the dean of age attempted solutions, including Sir Isaac Newton and, admissions at the Massachusetts in a clear conflict of interest, Rev. Dr. Nevil Maskelyne of Institute of Technology (MIT). Over the course of her 30-year career, she Cambridge University, the head of the board awarding the received copious accolades, includ- Iprize. Even so, no one was up to the challenge. ing MIT’s own Excellence Award But then along came Mr. John Harrison, a low-born Yorkshire for Leading Change and Gordon Y. carpenter and autodidactic clockmaker whose “marine chronom- Billard award “for special service of eter” somehow managed to do the trick—much to the chagrin of outstanding merit performed for the Institute,” and her astute writ- the other participants. Indeed, though the chronometer proved its ings have been featured in The Wall worth in countless trials, Maskelyne and his board refused Harri- Street Journal, The Boston Globe, son the prize, citing the carpenter’s lack of credentials. It was only and USA Today, among many other through the personal intervention of King George III that Harrison notable publications. On April 23, 2007, however, Jones resigned her eventually received compensation and the recognition he de- position because the administration served. at MIT had learned that she had fabricated her degrees from Albany Almost exactly 200 years later, I found myself Medical College, Union College, and the Rensselaer Polytechnic teaching jazz musicians at a music store that had Institute. just hired a young woman to supervise us instruc- Somewhat similarly, Ferdinand Waldo Demera worked success- tors, largely on the strength of her impressive fully as, among other things, a lawyer, a civil engineer, a doctor master’s degree in music. Well, around Christmas of applied psychology, a cancer researcher, and a surgeon in the time, I suggested that the store should form a Canadian Navy. When in 1951 the captain of the Canadian ves- band and perform at a local mall to spur enroll- sel on which Demera was sailing discovered that his ship’s doctor ment. Somewhat surprisingly, however, my new supervisor explained that she couldn’t participate because she couldn’t actually play any musical instrument well enough to appear in public—even with ample time to prepare. What do these two stories have in common? Both call attention to the problems inherent in the culture’s current system of credentialism. Accord- ing to the Random House Unabridged Diction- ary, “credentialism” is an “excessive reliance on credentials, especially academic degrees, in hiring or promotion policies.” It describes a situation in which competence is determined primarily on the basis of the degrees one obtains and the quality of the schools that conferred those degrees. But as was the case with John Harrison, sometimes the lack of a formal education can seriously belie one’s competency. And for some people, as I learned at

salvo spring 08 39 In today’s culture, if you have a degree, you’re This trend continued through the early 1900s. In considered competent; if you don’t, you aren’t. America, especially, self- instruction was the rule rath- Universities know this, which is why they also know er than the exception. In- stead of obtaining electrical that they can charge an arm and a leg for tuition. engineering degrees, George Westinghouse, Thomas Edison, and William Stanley, was a fake, he was dumbfounded, so proficient was Demera at Jr., simply went out and changed the world. Henry performing his duties. It turned out that “The Great Imposter,” as Ford didn’t have an automotive-engineering de- he would later be called, possessed a near-genius intellect that he gree. And the Wright brothers didn’t know what used to memorize medical techniques and procedures from text- aeronautical engineering was until they invented books. He may not have had a PhD, but he knew as much as any of it. But all this changed once universities became the other doctors in the naval fleet. secularized and the legislature began enacting Such stories are revealing for two reasons. First, they once such laws as the GI Bill (1944), which made college again demonstrate that expertise can be had outside of the acad- accessible to the masses. Quite suddenly, attending emy. But they also expose another, darker side to our obsession the local university became an expectation rather with credentials. Many people—whether because of deficiencies in than a privilege. And with the guild system pretty money, time, or opportunity—cannot achieve the level of educa- much gone, employers began looking to academia tion that they desire, while others languish, financially and other- for assurances of professionalism. The college wise, due to their lack of schooling. Given that so much of one’s degree quickly became a requirement for gainful occupation is learned “on the job” anyway, the temptation to pad employment. the old curriculum vitae in order to get a foot in the door is a huge In today’s culture, if you have a degree, you’re one. Credentialism has a tendency to breed dishonesty. considered competent; if you don’t, you aren’t. Of course, in the distant past, such deceit would have been Universities know this, which is why they also unnecessary. Employment education used to be limited to those know that they can charge an arm and a leg for pursuing a trade: woodworkers, stoneworkers, blacksmiths, doc- tuition. At their core, colleges are businesses; they tors, and so on. Skills were handed down from father to son or “sell” diplomas. Depending on the profession by apprenticeships. A novice was given food, shelter, and train- and school, a diploma costs between $10,000 and ing in exchange for several years’ servitude, after which he would $200,000—a huge chunk of change no matter gain entrance to a trade organization or guild. And that guild, by how you slice it. Those paying these vast sums thus positioning itself as the only source of a given skill set, ensured job expect to receive said diploma, regardless of their security, as well as leverage in collective bargaining. In short, what academic performance. Consequently, the average mattered in medieval Europe was real-world experience, and there student does not take his studies all that seriously, existed a readymade procedure for acquiring such experience and knowing full well that grade inflation and the for guaranteeing that an employee was qualified. The point is equally mediocre performance of his peers will that all skills, no matter how complex, are acquired by learning; save him in the end. whether one learns them in a classroom or in the field used not to Compounding matters is the academic bias at matter. most universities—a bias that is well-documented Interestingly enough, the earliest universities weren’t even throughout this issue of Salvo. Even a class whose oriented toward job preparation. Rather, they were established by subject matter is relatively straightforward—such the Vatican to educate churchmen and the sons of nobility (who as college algebra—now comes with plenty of became churchmen). Literacy being rare at the time, these schools political commentary on the part of the profes- were primarily concerned with the fundamentals: Latin (the lan- sor, distracting from the transmission of skills that guage of the church), Greek and Hebrew (the original languages should be taking place. Combined with the semi- of the Bible), French (the lingua franca), simple mathematics, and nar approach to college instruction, i.e., the post- church doctrine. And the same goes for American universities. modern belief that individuals should construct Though they’re reluctant to admit it now, most Ivy League colleges knowledge themselves rather than have it taught began as divinity schools. In fact, the reason that teachers were to them—all the rage among liberal academics— called “professors” was because they had made a profession of such distractions have watered down university faith. Simply put: Colleges trained the clergy; everyone else was curricula, leaving students as unskilled when they self-taught or trained on the job. leave as when they first enrolled. Not only that,

40 salvo issue 5 Historic Dropouts

ollowing is a short (and far from complete) list of college, high-school, and grade-school Fdropouts. These people are amateurs and im- posters; they lack university degrees, so their work is naturally suspect. They claim to have made con- tributions in their respective fi elds, but we know this to be impossible. After all, nobody can achieve anything without a nifty, honest-to-goodness, bona-fi de, gen-u-ine, embossed, jim-crack diploma.

Quack Engineers and Scientists • Orville and Wilbur Wright (inventors of the airplane) • Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the telephone) • Nikolai Tesla (developer of modern electrical systems) • Thomas Edison (inventor of the phonograph and the electric light bulb) L Albert Einstein (developer of the theory of relativity)

Wannabe Political Scientists • George Washington (US president) \ Abraham Lincoln (US president) • Grover Cleveland Humbug Writers (US president) • William Blake (Songs of Innocence) • Harry Truman (US president) • Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities) • Benjamin Franklin (US founding father and inventor) • Herman Melville (Moby Dick) L Leo Tolstoy (War and Peace) Pseudo-Business • Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn) Experts \ Henry Ford (founder Bogus Musicians of Ford Motor Com- and Composers pany) • J. S. Bach (composer) • John D. Rockefeller • Johannes Brahms (founder of Standard (composer) Oil Company) \ Louis Armstrong (jazz • David Sarnoff (found- trumpeter) er of the National • Dave Brubeck (jazz Broadcasting Company) pianist) • Bill Gates (founder and chairman of Microsoft) • Ornette Coleman • Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak (co-founders of Apple, (saxophonist, violinist, Inc.) trumpeter, and com- poser)

salvo spring 08 41 Stanford dropout, told reporters,

[W]e go to colleges, not so much because we give a damn about the credential, but because it’s hard to find other places where you have large concentrations of smart people and somebody will arrange the interviews for you. But we also have a lot of walk-on talent. We are looking for programming talent, and the degree is in no way, shape, or form very important. We ask them to send us a program they’ve written that they’re proud of. One of our superstars here is a guy who literally walked in off the street. We talked him out of going to college, and he has been here ever since.

Unfortunately, such maverick perspectives are few and far between—and for a pretty good but such bias has the less-acknowledged effect of killing new ideas reason: Regulatory bodies are important, especial- and independent thinking. In other words, the one thing that all ly in fields such as medicine and law, where con- students do learn in college is how to walk the party line. sumer protection and public safety are at stake, So there you have it. Young men and women, scarcely beyond and credentialism is the only system out there by adolescence, pay a great deal of money for a mere four years of which “to enforce standards of professionalism.” university training—which largely involves partying, intramural What we need are limited-term boards comprised sports, and afternoon-long naps—only to emerge indoctrinated of consumers and employers, as well as academ- and quite possibly stripped of their morals but the furthest thing ics, who together determine the parameters of from educated. This we call competency. And yet without this rite competence for various disciplines and then create of passage, one cannot even begin to have a meaningful impact methods of measuring that competence—who upon the world. If Pythagoras were alive today, he would not be actively encourage ideas and individuals from allowed to teach mathematics at even an elementary school, and outside of academia. We should also be recruit- Ezra Cornell, a self-taught mechanical engineer, would be unquali- ing real-world achievers, those who lack a formal fied to attend—let alone teach at—the American university he education but have nevertheless attained a high founded. Are college credentials really the measure we should be level of expertise in a given area, to in turn train using to assess aptitude? others in the acquisition of these same skills—an Some are starting to have doubts. Richard Boyatzis, for ex- apprenticeship program for a new age. We could ample, an internationally renowned expert on competency and a even compensate these “masters” via the profits consultant at Case Western Reserve University, MIT, and Harvard, of corporations, the primary beneficiaries of a bet- recently had this to say on the topic: ter education paradigm. The problem here, of course, is that creden- I’ve come to see that whenever a group institutes a tialism is a completely entrenched component of credentialing process, whether by licensing or advanced our culture. Those already holding diplomas are degrees, the espoused rhetoric is to enforce standards not going to allow them to be devalued without a of professionalism. This is true whether it’s among ac- fight, and you can bet that colleges and universi- countants or plumbers or physicians. But the observed ties aren’t going to take the matter lying down, consequences always seem to be these two: the exclusion either. Then again, who knows? With college costs of certain groups, whether by intention or not, and the continuing to escalate and the indoctrination at establishment of mediocre performance standards. universities continuing to worsen, perhaps the world is ready for a change. One thing is certain: Some employers are increasingly looking beyond the university If such change does come, it will no doubt be for potential hires. When asked how Microsoft finds its program- instigated by someone without the credentials to mers, Steven Ballmer, the vice president of the company and a do so.

42 salvo issue 5 SPECIAL FORCES //semper.sci_with Hugh Ross Put ‘Em to the Test Toward Resolving the Confl ict Between Naturalism and Intelligent Design

0 Observation 0 Hypothesis 0 Experiment 0 Conclusion 0

he most persistent complaint I hear about all, no one denies that the universe, life, and the molecular intelligent design (ID)—and I hear it again and machinery of life appear to be designed, and all sides ac- again—is that ID is not science. This perception knowledge that the scientifi c evidence for design is over- (or, rather, misperception) explains why main- whelming. No, the real issue of contention is the nature of stream Americans—educators, media pundits, that observed design. Tjudges, politicians, and others—so emphatically reject ID. Ironically, by declaring nature as the only possible Their argument for rejection goes something like this: ID source of observed designs and insisting that an intelligent is not science because ID is not testable, and because it is causal agent cannot be discussed as possibly responsible not science, it has no factual basis and thus no place in the for such design, naturalists have, in fact, placed intelligent public arena. ID is worth discussing only in religious set- design squarely on the scientifi c table. And that’s where tings, if anywhere. this confl ict needs to be resolved—on the scientifi c table Advocates of naturalism and naturalistic evolution see and by the acceptable rules of scientifi c inquiry, known ID advocates as religious dogmatists in a fl imsy disguise, ID most familiarly as the scientifi c method. advocates see evolution’s proponents as philosophical dog- Indeed, the only real hope I see for resolution of the matists who are blind to the signs of design in the natural public (and private) debates about intelligent design world, and never the twain shall meet. involves a willingness by all parties involved to (1) identify Such tension achieves nothing, of course, and may and analyze in as much detail as possible the characteris- even be stalling scientifi c progress. So what to do? How tics of observed designs; (2) identify as specifi cally as pos- can scientists overcome this seeming impasse? I would sible what or who could be responsible for the observed argue that design is not really what’s at issue here. After designs; and (3) develop defi nitive scientifi c tests that can

salvo spring 08 43 0 Despite its theological implications, its indications of a transcendent, personal (intelligent and intentional) causal agent, Big-Bang cosmology is now widely acknowledged as an accurate, thoroughly corroborated depiction of the universe.

distinguish among the possible sources of the designs. Each set of models generated a list of predictions Why do I think this might work? Well, in at least one about what the observational data would reveal, and the area of research scientists took this path, and the results research moved forward. The scientifi c ability to put such speak for themselves. predictions to the test legitimately brought theological constructs into the science-research laboratory—and from there into the science classroom. Despite its theological im- Exhibit A: Cosmology plications, its indications of a transcendent, personal (intel- From the early 1960s to the early 1990s, astronomers ligent and intentional) causal agent, Big-Bang cosmology vigorously debated and rigorously tested more than a is now widely acknowledged as an accurate, thoroughly dozen explanations for the origin, history, and structure of corroborated depiction of the universe. Each test applied the universe. Finally, by the 1990s, researchers had devel- since the early 1990s has only confi rmed and amplifi ed its oped the instruments they needed to look closely at the details. And that process continues today. universe, measure its features, and detect any apparent fi ne-tuning those features required—not only for cosmic existence but also for the existence of human investiga- Specifi c ID Tests in Diverse Disciplines tors. Technology allowed them to test various hypotheses, In a recent book, I proposed several dozen scientifi c tests old and new. for determining the source of the designs scientists see These hypotheses refl ected a wide-ranging diversity of throughout the vast realm of nature. Here are just a few “religious” perspectives—theistic, pantheistic, nontheistic, brief examples of such tests: and noncommittal. Despite the openly acknowledged theological implications of the hypothesized models, scien- Genetic studies will soon yield insight into the DNA tists rigorously—and with government support—pursued 1history for both the Homo sapiens sapiens (humans) answers (except in what were then some Soviet republics, and Neanderthals. Atheistic, agnostic, deistic, and the- where scientists were forbidden to publicly discuss, or istic evolutionary models all would predict a signifi cant urged to discredit, certain explanations, especially the Big evolutionary connection between human DNA and that Bang). In the words of China’s famed astrophysicist Fang Li of the hominids. The intelligent-design model developed Zhi, “A question that has always been considered a topic by our scientifi c team at Reasons To Believe predicts that of metaphysics or theology, the creation of the universe, differences between hominid and human DNA will prove has become an idea of active research in physics.” signifi cant, especially for that part of the genome that Naturalists, especially the atheists among them, un- governs brain structure. This prediction is satisfi ed in the ambiguously expressed their bias in favor of steady-state case of Neanderthals, which display unique genetic charac- models and against any model that required a cause (or teristics and no continuity with human DNA. Our ID model designer) outside the physical universe. They embraced also predicts that the DNA for both species will manifest Carl Sagan’s mantra: “The cosmos is all that is or ever only microevolutionary change through time and that the was or ever will be.” Those who preferred the Eastern notion of a common evolutionary ancestor for the two mystical perspective openly favored the idea that space species will become less and less feasible. and time are eternal and that the universe reincarnates (or oscillates) through endless cycles of cosmic begin- Nontheistic (and deistic) evolutionary models for nings and endings with a few billion years between one 2life’s origin predict that astrophysics, geophysics, and beginning and the next. Both these groups expressed other lines of research will establish a widening time their disdain for any model that refl ected Judeo-Christian window and an increasing array of mechanisms to facili- theism. Such models were jokingly referred to as Big- tate life’s self-assembly, as well as a more abundant and Bang models—ones that posited a single beginning for concentrated reservoir of essential prebiotics (exclusively the universe, including all its matter, energy, space, and left-handed amino acids, nucleobases, and exclusively time, and continuous expansion according to unvarying right-handed fi ve-carbon sugars) that could have arisen on laws of physics. Earth or been delivered from somewhere in space. Our ID

44 salvo issue 5 Map of the Early Universe

stronomers’ most detailed (all-sky) map of the radiation left over from the cosmic creation event, also known as the cosmic background radiation, has rewarded researchers with valuable data. This map is from the sec- A ond data release of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) satellite and is based on three years’ accumulated observations. Analysis of the map has yielded important information about the physical conditions of the universe when it was 380,000 years old and when it was just a 10-34 second old (less than a ten thousandth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of its current age). Such information has revealed previously hidden design fea- tures of the universe, features that allow astronomers to draw specifi c conclusions about the nature of the designer. (Image is courtesy of the WMAP Science Team and NASA.)

model predicts a shrinking time window for the origin of speciation. Nontheistic, deistic, and even theistic evolution- life, increasing evidence that life’s origin occurred rapidly ary models predict that the ecological relationships among without benefi t of a signifi cant reservoir of prebiotics, and surviving and new species following a mass- extinction increasing evidence that the date for the origin of life event would take a long time to reach optimization. Our coincides with the fi rst appearance of stable liquid water ID model predicts that mass-extinction events would be and of light conditions suitable for photosynthesis (about followed by sudden mass-speciation events, and that the 3.8 billion years ago). ecological relationships among the surviving and new spe- cies would be optimal from the start. A nontheistic perspective predicts that the differences 3between a universe with the necessary features to The purpose of presenting these examples is to illus- produce and sustain life as simple as bacteria, for example, trate that debates over design can and must be resolved and one with the necessary features to produce and sus- in the scientifi c arena rather than in the political or legal tain even one advanced global civilization would be large, arenas. Scientists already possess useful tools—with new perhaps, but not stunningly dramatic. Our ID perspective and better technologies on the way—to test and re-test predicts that the fi ne-tuning required to provide for and the inherently theological perspectives on designs ob- sustain global human civilization would be many, many served in nature. The key question still remains, however: orders of magnitude greater than that required for bacte- Will scientists and the culture that sustains their endeavors rial life. allow cherished beliefs to be subjected to rigorous sci- entifi c testing? If so, we all must be willing to follow the Astronomers, geophysicists, and paleontologists have accumulating data wherever it leads. 4improved dramatically in their ability to identify Earth’s history of mass-extinction events and subsequent Brought to you by Reasons To Believe: reasons.org

salvo spring 08 45 DISPATCHES State of the Just How Bad Is the IndoctrinationU at American Universities? We Ask David Horowitz By Marcia Segelstein

ou’ve no doubt heard it said that it takes one to know one. Well, that definitely accounts for the success of David Horowitz, the noted au- thor, speaker, political pundit, and—most recently—critic of American academia. The son of two life-long members of the Communist Party, Horowitz was himself once a Marxist and later a member of the New YLeft. He was great friends with Black Panthers leader Huey P. Newton, and he has writ- ten a number of leftist critiques of American society, including The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War. In short, Horowitz has been about as extreme as a radical ideologue can possibly be. He even served as political aide to Bertrand Russell, for crying out loud. 2

46 salvo issue 5 Today, of course, Horowitz is one of the most accomplished opponents of the political Left, and the most likely explanation for his proficiency in this regard is that he knows and understands Leftism more than most, having subcribed to it for so long. He tried it; he didn’t like it; and now he has devoted much of his life to debunking it, which he does with wit, wisdom, and panache. Currently, he is obsessed with the left-wing dominance of our colleges and universities—a situation that he believes has corrupted the quality of Ameri- can higher education. In both The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America and Indoctrination U: The Left’s War Against Academic Freedom, Horowitz blasts away at the liberal bias that stifles free thinking on even religiously affiliated college campuses—a bias that has “rejected the concept of the university as a temple of the intellect, in which the term ‘academic’ described a curriculum insulated from the political passions of the times.” In particular, he laments the now typical classroom practice of tying educational success to one’s abil- ity to echo the teacher’s political views, which he says brainwashes students via intimidation. But what, precisely, is the extent of the indoctrination problem at American colleges and universities? We decided to check in with Horowitz himself. After all, if anyone has access to the tactics and agenda of the Left, it is this guy—a recovered radical who simply knows too much about his former ideology to under- rate its pervasiveness.

eyond the 101 academics profiled in your book The eally? Most other colleges are worse than Harvard? Professors, how corrupt is higher education in the BUnited States? R I don’t want to overstate the case, so I would estimate Definitely. As you descend down the academic food chain, “on the record” that there are around 30,000 political things get much, much worse. State colleges, community ideologues in American colleges and universities. That colleges, and junior colleges, where academic and meri- said, I secretly think the number is much larger—at least torious standards are less likely to be enforced, have the 60,000 by my own estimate. I gauge this number by the most problems. I’m currently doing this study, which I will incident at Harvard wherein a large number of faculty— publish next year, that examines 170 college courses that about ten percent—voted to censure then school presi- are clearly bent on indoctrination—and these are found at dent Larry Summers because he had uttered a politically only twelve universities! You can tell just by looking at the incorrect idea. Now if ten percent of Harvard’s faculty took syllabi and catalogue statements that they are leftist to this attitude—keeping in mind that Harvard is probably the extreme. I chose these courses because they were obvi- freer of such attitudes than most universities because it’s ous; who knows how many other courses reflect a liberal such an elite school—and you extrapolate that figure to bias? I think it’s safe to say that students can go through the other 600,000 faculty at colleges and universities in the college these days and get training in the politics of the country, then you begin to see the scope of the problem. radical Left instead of an actual education. This situation

It’s all quite Orwellian in that they claim to occupy modern research institutions that teach the scientific method and skepticism about all beliefs when in reality they have a definite ideological agenda that cannot be questioned.

salvo spring 08 47 teaches that America is a racist, sexist, homophobic, and Islamophobic society. It’s a weird sort of moral relativ- ism that isn’t really relativistic at all in that Americans, capitalist societies, and liberal democracies are always condemned. It’s not that these academics are indoctrinat- ing students into Democratic party politics; rather, they’re changing the makeup of the Democratic political party by indoctrinating students into radical social and moral views. The Professors was designed to show—to reveal— a type of professor who puts politics before scholarship. And because these individuals have purged conserva- tives and non-Leftists from their faculties, and since they basically now just talk to themselves (they’ve expunged true intellectual dialogue from large sections of the uni- versity), they’ve become more and more extreme. Universi- ties have always been a haven for mediocrity, but never for the extremism that we are seeing now. By profiling such professors, and that’s one of the things that the Left really hates, I reveal just how extreme they are. All I have to do is quote them.

t would seem that the odds of graduating from college Ias a political conservative would be pretty slim. is pretty much limited to the liberal-arts fields at pres- No, that’s really not the case. One must always keep in ent, and probably always will be, but these are the areas mind that universities are very large institutions. They’re in which most students get their training these days. As I similar to conglomerates, and they produce many differ- demonstrated in The Professors, university administrations ent things. There are whole sections of the university—the are typically impotent, lacking any will to confront the business schools, the engineering schools, the medical tenured radicals that now dominate large sections of the schools, the professional schools, even most economics de- liberal-arts departments, as well as such political instru- partments—that don’t get involved in the indoctrination ments as faculty senates. process. These departments will most likely be liberal, but that’s not the problem; they’ll also be scholarly. The fields ooking beyond “politics” in the narrow sense of the that have been corrupted are sociology, anthropology, and word, what are your thoughts about how Ameri- most of the interdisciplinary departments—women’s stud- L can universities are indoctrinating students in the ies, black studies, gay and lesbian studies, and so on. These broader areas of, say, morality and higher truths? are just ideological and political training institutes. But that’s not the whole university; it’s not even the majority Well, I rarely use “politics” in the narrow sense. The radical of the university. Of course, all students will have to con- curriculum that is being rammed down students’ throats tend with their schools’ liberal-arts requirements. Almost every college now has a multicultural requirement, which is just a cover for studying ideology. Students are forced to 03 FACT FINDS take such courses, so they’re all affected in this sense. But ------for a lot of students, ideology is on the periphery; they can 2 This past February, Duke University welcomed to its just blow it off. Reynolds Theater the Sex Workers Art Show, which featured prostitutes, porn stars, and strippers engaging ut let’s say you begin college as a believing, pro- in “performance art.” Sponsored by the Duke Women’s life Catholic. Does the current climate on university Center and Students for Choice, among seven other Bcampuses put you at risk of losing your morals and university organizations, the show consisted of nude values? and semi-nude men and women exhibiting lewd and at times pornographic behavior on stage. • Sure. It’s very difficult to maintain your principles in college. If the teachers don’t attack students who voice

48 salvo issue 5 Self-Evident Truths? o most of us, the following core principles of David Horowitz’s Academic Bill of Rights, which he proposed in 2003 through his organization Students for Academic Freedom, seem an idea whose Ttime has definitely come. Critics of the tenets, however, argue that they represent an attempt on the part of cultural conservatives to force their agen- da on unwitting schools. But given that the only thing Horowitz’s bill would really require is that The Academic Bill of Rights colleges and universities resist being the pawns of All faculty shall be hired, subjects examined in their any one ideological viewpoint, whether liberal or 1fired, promoted, and courses is a major responsibility granted tenure on the basis of of faculty. Faculty will not use conservative, one suspects that such complaints their competence and appro- their courses for the purpose of actually stem from a desire to maintain the status priate knowledge in the field political, ideological, religious, of their expertise and, in the or anti-religious indoctrination. quo—which in this case would mean continuing humanities, the social sciences, the longstanding tradition of left-wing academic and the arts, with a view Selection of speakers, toward fostering a plurality of 6allocation of funds for bias. methodologies and perspec- speakers programs, and other tives. No faculty shall be hired student activities will observe or fired or denied promotion the principles of academic or tenure on the basis of his freedom and promote intel- or her political or religious lectual pluralism. beliefs. An environment conducive No faculty member will be 7to the civil exchange of 2excluded from tenure or ideas being an essential com- search and hiring committees ponent of a free university, the on the basis of his political or obstruction of invited campus religious beliefs. speakers, destruction of cam- pus literature, or other efforts Students will be graded to obstruct this exchange will 3solely on the basis of their not be tolerated. reasoned answers and ap- propriate knowledge of the Knowledge advances when subjects and disciplines they 8individual scholars are study, not on the basis of their left free to reach their own political or religious beliefs. conclusions about which meth- ods, facts, and theories have Curricula and reading been validated by research. 4lists in the humanities Academic institutions and and social sciences should professional societies formed reflect the uncertainty and to advance knowledge within unsettled character of all an area of research, maintain human knowledge in these the integrity of the research areas by providing students process, and organize the with dissenting sources and professional lives of related viewpoints where appropriate. researchers serve as indispens- While teachers are and should able venues within which be free to pursue their own scholars circulate research findings and perspectives in findings and debate their in- presenting their views, they terpretation. To perform these should consider and make functions adequately, academ- their students aware of other ic institutions and professional viewpoints. Academic disci- societies should maintain a plines should welcome a diver- posture of organizational sity of approaches to unsettled neutrality with respect to the questions. substantive disagreements that divide researchers on Exposing students to the questions within, or outside, 5spectrum of significant their fields of inquiry. scholarly viewpoints on the

salvo spring 08 49 The mission of most universities today is to instill radical, leftist, or totalitarian doctrines in students, and there’s very little tolerance for other points of view.

conservative views, then the other students will. And typi- a bigger school or a school that has strong conservative cally, the teachers will either encourage such attacks or institutions. Get in touch with other conservative kids and stand by mutely. This is not to say that students shouldn’t find out what classes to avoid—what teachers to avoid. be challenged by ideas that are at odds with their own. One school that would be perfectly safe for your child is It’s the way they will be challenged that is the problem. Pepperdine. There’s also the University of Chicago; it’s a There was a student at Princeton who took a sociology hard school to get into and very scientifically oriented, but course in which the professor claimed that SAT tests were it’s a pretty decent place. culturally biased and therefore racist. Now, this student just happened to be a math major who was well-versed n the preface to the paperback edition of The Profes- in statistics, and he insisted that the data showed the sors, you write that “those who see themselves as exact opposite of what his professor was claiming. Conse- Iacademic progressives are in effect going backwards to quently, the teacher called this student a racist in front of a time when universities were largely denominational and the whole class. There are a couple of sins here: First, only their mission was to instill religious creeds.” What do you one side of a controversial claim was represented—that of mean by this? the teacher’s ideological prejudice. The second is that the student was demonized. This professor should have been The point is that such “progressives” are completely fired. He essentially assaulted the student and issued a hypocritical. It’s all quite Orwellian in that they claim to oc- warning to the other students that they shouldn’t ques- cupy modern research institutions that teach the scientific tion authority. And that’s another thing; such professors method and skepticism about all beliefs when in reality are the same people who call themselves progressives and they have a definite ideological agenda that cannot be wear t-shirts that say, “Question authority.” What they questioned. You wouldn’t want to go to a nineteenth- really mean, however, is that students should question century Lutheran school if you were Catholic, I don’t think, everybody’s authority but the professor’s. Yes, college is because its mission is to instill Lutheran doctrine. Well, going to be pretty tough on any student who decides to the mission of most universities today is to instill radical, speak up in class. leftist, or totalitarian doctrines in students, and there’s very little tolerance for other points of view. Although as I f you were advising a close friend or relative on where wrote in The Professors, the larger part of a given college’s to send his child to college, what would be your top faculty is not radical or ideological. The college will no Ipicks? doubt have a left-wing bias, but every college has a bias. Well, to be honest, I would tell him that his child could s the answer to return to a system of openly denomi- even go to UC Santa Cruz, the worst school in America national colleges? because it engages in such outrageous indoctrination I practices, and still get a wonderful education—provided, of course, that he majors in something like astronomy First of all, you can’t do that with state institutions, and or physics. It’s not so much about picking the college as you shouldn’t. I can’t remember the exact figure, but about avoiding extremist departments, though I would something like 80 percent of our students go to state personally avoid schools such as Vassar that have almost colleges. That said, we do have a system in America that a hermetically sealed leftist environment. No, try to go to encourages free associations, so I think it’s perfectly

50 salvo issue 5 The Left Turn avid Horowitz can do more than just identify the radical element in American colleges and univer- sities; as exhibited in his book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, he Dcan also tell you how that radical element came to be. It all began with the anti-war activists of the Vietnam era, Horowitz writes. These individuals enrolled in schools by the thousands to avoid the military draft and stayed on as long as possible, earning PhDs before becoming tenure-track professors in the 1970s. Having never abandoned their activist mindsets, they desired nothing less than the complete transformation of academia from “an ivory tower”—wherein the curricula transcended politics—to a forum for indoctrina- tion. These new academics, believing they were engaged in some sort of social-justice movement, did away with the old standards and fields of study and began creating new departments and classes (such as “women’s studies” and “black studies”) that brazenly reflected and imparted their own partisan agendas. Gone was even the pretense of intellectual diversity as activist professors dismissed conservative ideas on “moral” grounds. By the late 1980s, once colleges were packed to the rafters with leftist faculties, these new disciplines were not enough to encompass all that the radicals sought to accom- plish. Consequently, they created even more new departments— ”cultural studies, peace studies, whiteness studies, post-colonial studies, global studies,” and so on—to further develop and dis- seminate liberal dogma. And because these departments were “interdisciplinary,” they eventually managed to infiltrate the traditional subject areas. “Virtually every English Department, History Department, and law school now draws on Women’s Studies and African American Studies Departments for courses and faculty,” says Horowitz. As a result, the educational philoso- phy of the institutions themselves has been altered—from “the disinterested pursuit of knowledge” to the extremely interested pursuit of “social change.”

healthy to have private institutions that are denomi- firing people who have ideas you don’t like, but you can national. The problem is that even these are becoming hold people to professional standards. The university is increasingly leftist. When I spoke at DePaul University in probably the only institution in society that has no ac- Chicago, which bills itself as the largest Catholic university countability and is proud of it. When the accountants at in America, the Catholic students complained to me that ENRON run amuck, Congress steps in to right the ship; new Islam gets more respect at DePaul than Catholicism. Also, rules are put into place. But in the university, the faculty the theology department there is run by atheists. The at- runs the school, and I just don’t see a lot of willingness on titudes of the greater academic community, which have the part of trustees to hold faculties accountable. been slowly corrupted over the past thirty years, have infused all American colleges and universities to some o you really think that an Academic Bill of Rights degree, whether they’re religious or not. Dwould ever be adopted? hat, then, is the answer? I don’t know. The Left is very dedicated, and it never gives W up. Plus, not much conservative attention is dedicated to the university. I think it will be an uphill struggle. The What I’m doing is campaigning for academic freedom and American university is so out of synch with the American an Academic Bill of Rights. I feel that we must work with public; if these people would just join the fight, then I what we have in these institutions. You can’t go into them think we could win some battles.

salvo spring 08 51 SPECIAL FORCES //foreign.intel_with Michael Cook W eighty Pr oblems There’ s a Limit to the Number of Issues That W e Can Panic Over

hich of the following should keep you industry from its pole position. “It is true that new and re- awake at night counting the minutes emerging health threats such as SARS, avian flu, HIV/AIDS, until the clock strikes Doomsday: terrorism, bio-terrorism, and climate change are dramatic Terrorism? Climate change? SARS? and emotive,” adds Professor Stig Pramming, an Oxford AIDS? Well, according to public-health don who is OxHA’s executive director. “However, it is pre- expertW Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University, your ventable chronic disease that will send health systems and answer should be “none of the above.” In a burst of economies to the wall.” impassioned rhetoric, he told a summit run by the Oxford Scary stuff. And just a bit cheeky, too. Al Gore won Health Alliance (OxHA) in Sydney earlier this year that al- an Oscar and a Nobel Prize for terrifying us about global though global terrorism is “a real threat,” it’s just a teddy warming. Is Professor Gostin saying that he didn’t bear next to the 800-pound gorilla of obesity. deserve it? “Ever since September 11, we’ve been lurching from Anyhow, obesity is just one of many threats to na - one crisis to the next, which has really frightened the tional finances in the year 2030. What about oil shortages, public,” Gostin said. “While we’ve been focusing so much depression, aging populations, Ebola, mass migration, attention on that, we’ve had this silent epidemic of obesity internet meltdown, and nuclear warfare—to say nothing that’s killing millions of people around the world, and of all those known unknowns and unknown unknowns? we’re devoting very little attention to it and a negligible Although the prospect of millions of avoidable deaths amount of money.” from heart disease, diabetes, and cancer is dismaying, Purblind politicians, it seems, are averting their gaze why should the Oscar for moral panic (and the lion’s share from the horrors to come. “In the current US Presidential of research funding) go to global obesity rather than to campaign, prevention of obesity and the effect it is hav- global terrorism or global warming? ing on the poor has so far registered barely a blip on the At work here is not only a cynical public-relations Democratic side of politics and zero on the Republican campaign by the chronic-disease lobby, but also a pro- side,” said Gostin in the summit’s official press release. found moral confusion. The obesity epidemic is unlike its These rhetorical fireworks seem to signal an auda - rivals, which are beyond any single individual’s control. cious tilt by obesitarians at knocking the global warming Sure, a host of other factors are at work in the obesity

52 salvo issue 5 epidemic: faulty genes, obesogenic working envi- ronments, prosperity, advertising, poverty, family break-up, and so on. But in addition to all of these factors, obesity represents a crisis of freedom and personal responsibility. In the worst cases, the obese have sold their birthright of a trim physique for a mess of pot- tage—a lounge in front of the television and a Mars bar. Framing a lifestyle disease as a calamity as unavoidable as a collision with an asteroid helps no one because it leaves out the crucial ingredient of free will. Some research suggests that excessive materialism and individualism, as well as the decline in religious belief, are important factors in the rise of obesity. More funding, more government regula- tions, more hectoring from public-health authorities will not have an impact on these. There are other fallacies in the obesity narrative. The politics, to begin with. Gostin got this wrong. Obesity is an issue in the US presidential campaign. Onetime Republican hopeful Mike Huckabee is the most famous ex-obese man in America. His triumphant loss of 110 pounds and his book Quit Digging Your Grave with a Knife and Fork help explain an electoral appeal that baffled foreigners. Since he clearly had the upper A suicide bomber killing dozens in a hand in the obesity stakes, it’s little wonder that the other candidates Baghdad food market is simply not the same ignored it. as a grocery shopper sloooowly killing Second, and more seriously, there is the assumed moral equiva- himself in a supermarket with yet another lence between death by terrorism super-size Coke and a roast chicken. and death by gobbling. Terror- ism rends the fabric of civic life, striking at the law and order that underpin a workable democratic society. A suicide bomber of obesity is that its victims would have died anyway. The killing dozens in a Baghdad food market is simply not the relevant issue is by how much their life expectancy will be same as a grocery shopper sloooowly killing himself in a reduced. The authors of the NEJM study estimate that it supermarket with yet another super-size Coke and a roast will only be by “one-third to three-fourths of a year.” This chicken. The former, if unchecked, will destroy a democrat- is not negligible when spread over millions of Americans. ic state and human rights. But a democracy of obese voters But lethal childhood diseases in the developing world is still a democracy. It is indecent to equate the two. deprive millions of victims of decades of life. Pro-life sup- Third, in any case, Gostin’s foreboding calculations porters could even trump this by multiplying the millions may be completely wrong. They do not appear to account of annual abortions by the world-average life expectancy. for the savings that public-health systems will achieve Statistics is a game that two can play. through a decline in the average life-span. Ghoulish as it Finally, pooh-poohing the danger of terrorism is may sound, a study in The New England Journal of Medi- bound to be a damp squib. OxHA wants to enlist youth, cine (NEJM) has forecast that obesity will rescue the Amer- activists, and environmentalists in a “coalition of the com- ican social security system from bankruptcy. Which will mitted” who will build a world of weight-watchers. Sorry, cost more: death from obesity at 65 or death at 85 after guys, but it’s impossible to get starry-eyed about calorie- 20 years with Alzheimer’s? The idea that for the first time counting and regular exercise. Fighting terror—even since 1900, the average lifespan of a generation could be fighting global warming, for that matter—has a social- shorter than that of its parents is dismaying. But the im- justice dimension that obesity lacks. Ultimately, death by pact on the bottom line should not be ignored—if OxHA is obesity is a lifestyle choice. Death by terror isn’t. interested in the truth rather than playing Chicken Little. The problem with calculating the economic impact Brought to you by MercatorNet: mercatornet.com

salvo spring 08 53 RANDOM FLAK They Insist That They’re Harmless, } But Are Fraternities Telling the Truth? By Bobby Maddex

n November 11, 1750, a group of six young men focused on providing a from the College of William and Mary organized a social outlet for students student “society” as an escape from the pressures rather than on serv- of their studies. The society—which called itself ing as literary, service, or discussion groups. the Flat Hat Club (no one knows why)—decided The end of World War I to meet at a local tavern in order to drink copious introduced ex-soldiers to amounts of ale and catch up on news from the out- the clubs, who added to side world. When the college faculty caught wind of such dalliance, them the hazing prac- O tices they had learned they of course tried to stop it, which led the boys to begin meeting in one of the tavern’s private rooms. To protect themselves from the in boot camp. Soon, fraternity members school’s spies, the students then devised a secret handshake, oath, began living together in and password with which to identify each other. houses; college women demanded their own Sixteen years later, those who had been rejected for member- societies, which led to the formation of sororities; ship in the Flat Hat Club decided to form their own organization. and both fraternities and sororities, having freed Calling themselves the Phi Beta Kappa Society, they chose to center themselves from the restrictions of dorm life, col- their club around something other than cold beer, settling on the lege housing, and administration scrutiny, began discussion of topics not covered by their classical education. They, earning a reputation for indulgent, reckless, and too, met in secret and adopted rituals, handclasps, membership lascivious behavior. badges, and oaths. But they also adopted a “code of high ideals,” The Vietnam War ended this first fraternity which included academic excellence and exemplary conduct. Once boom. Hippies and other campus activists refused the society expanded to other universities, however, it became to participate in the “Greek System” (named for hard to maintain its ceremonies and customs. Phi Beta Kappa thus the Greek letters used to designate most fraterni- became more of an academic honor than a functioning society, ties), calling it elitist, oppressive, and discriminato- and in 1831, it was forced by Harvard University to reveal its ry; and the introduction of co-ed housing likewise secrets. contributed to a loss of interest in fraternity life. Suddenly, students around the country had access to this With the passage of Title IX, however, the 1972 template for forming their own secret societies, which they did amendment designed to remedy sexual inequal- in droves. These new “fraternities,” as they would later be called, ity in education, sororities began to receive more

54 salvo issue 5 funding and thus attracted a new influx of mem- bers, inspiring male students to again join their counterparts. By the early 1980s, both fraternities and sororities were more popular than ever, and they increasingly devoted themselves to the art of hard partying. A series of injuries and deaths in the 1990s— primarily resulting from hazing—woke the nation up to this situation. States enacted laws prohibit- ing such dangerous induction rites, and the lead- ers of Greek organizations started to drastically shorten their pledge periods—typically the time when most hazing occurs. Concurrently, a number of studies were released showing that members of fraternities and sororities drank substantially more alcohol than nonmembers. One such study, published in 1994 in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that 86 percent of men and 80 percent of women who belonged to fraternities and sororities were binge drinkers. It was these findings, more than anything else, that caused many colleges to completely eliminate fraternal organizations. Today, about seven percent of students at four-year colleges are members of fraternities or sororities—although at some schools in the South, more than half of the students are members—and there are well over 5,500 total fraternity and sorority chapters on 800 different college cam- matters is the uneasy relationship between fraternities and their puses across the U.S. And if university promo- host institutions; revealing just one damning detail about frat life tional materials are to be believed, gone are the might be enough to get a fraternity shut down, unleashing the ire Animal House-style antics of frat boys and their of “actives” and alumni alike. And then there’s that little matter sister sororities, and such crazy hazing rituals as of personal embarrassment; who in his right mind would want to the “elephant walk” and the “circle jerk” (don’t own up in print to past misdeeds and moral failures? No one, quite ask) have long since been abandoned as well. frankly, which is why Salvo promised anonymity to anyone who “[F]raternity and sorority members have been would dare lift the curtain on his fraternal activities. categorized as partyers, irresponsible, arrogant, Needless to say, we finally found our guy. Pretty much all and abusive,” reads the Truman State University we can tell you about him is that he currently attends a massive website. “In reality, fraternities and sororities are university somewhere below the Mason-Dixon line, and that up value-based organizations dedicated to the devel- until a year or so ago, he belonged to one of the most prestigious opment of character and lifelong friendship.” fraternities in the country. While he is quite upfront about the But is this actually the case? Have fraternities general attitudes and behaviors of fraternity members, he also responded to recent crackdowns by curbing their made it clear prior to the interview that we would not get the wild tendencies? How does frat life today compare whole story—that much more went on at his fraternity than he with its previous incarnations? Is it true what some can say. Even so, what he does reveal proves compelling enough, critics say—that the loss of meaning that occurs in and it will give you some idea of what to expect these days should the college classroom is played out in the evenings you ever decide to go Greek. within the nihilistic walls of the fraternity house? First, a disclaimer. We are well aware that there are some Or are fraternities just a harmless way to make wonderful men’s and women’s organizations out there—many of friends? them fraternities and sororities—that contribute to the personal There’s only one way to find out the answers growth of their members, as well as to the campus, the commu- to such questions, and that’s by talking to a fra- nity, and the nation. Even so, the situation documented here is not ternity member. But this is a dicey proposition. an isolated one. It’s important that prospective college students— Your average fraternity has at least 100 years of not to mention their parents—look beyond the public face of any secrecy behind its belt, and no one wants to be club that they might conceivably join and try to discern the precise the first guy to rat out his brothers. Compounding nature of that club’s activities.

salvo spring 08 55 Why did you decide to join a fraternity? How does the fraternity let you know } Well, this is a big university. I didn’t know very many people com- } that you’ve been selected? ing in, and I thought a fraternity would be a good way to make First, it has a “bid” night where the final selections a new set of friends. Plus, my father was a member when he was are made. You are then called to the fraternity here. I knew what I was getting into—somewhat. I knew about the house where a group of rush chairs and some of drinking and the girls, though I wasn’t really aware of what goes the officers take you into a room and ask whether on during pledgeship. I knew a lot of immoral stuff takes place, you want to become a member—whether you but I also thought that I could be a member and a nonmember are serious about it and everything. If you agree at the same time. I thought I would be the one who stayed away to join, they say, “Welcome,” and then you sign a from the truly depraved behavior—who kept his worldview intact. membership card. There are really no rituals at this point. You just say that you want to belong, and then they tell you that pledgeship will begin as How is one recruited into a fraternity? soon as classes start—that when school begins, so } The fraternity has a series of parties over the summer, and it will the hazing. welcomes everyone who signs up for them on the university’s website. It also invites the younger brothers and friends of active members—anyone whom the members think would be a good fit. How does the hazing process work? The parties have two purposes. First, they’re designed to show you } It starts the first day of school and ends just just how fun the fraternity can be. But they’re also a sort of tryout before final exams in December. Throughout in that the actives begin eliminating potential pledges based the whole semester, you have to show up at the on their behavior. Basically, the fraternity starts with about 150 fraternity house at certain times of day. If you pledges, but they can only accept 30 or 40. I came in late and was don’t show up, then you get into trouble. Trouble only able to attend a couple of parties, but because I’m “legacy”— means being disciplined, and in the beginning, my father was a member—it just kind of worked out. I met some this means doing some sort of physical activity. of the rush chairs who are in charge of getting the guys whom the All of the pledge brothers have to come to the fraternity wants; we became friends, and the rest just came sort house in the morning, at lunch, and in the after- of easy. noon, and—basically—your job is to serve food to the actives. The catch is that as you are doing it, you are also being harassed. Members pelt you What qualities are the fraternity looking for in a with food; they yell at you; they make fun of } potential pledge? your physical defects, especially if you’re over- Mostly, it just wants a guy who is “cool”—someone who won’t weight. And even though you know that they’re give the fraternity a bad name. The members don’t want someone joking—putting on an act—it still feels mean. All who acts crazy all the time. They want people who are able to han- of these people you don’t really know are tor- dle themselves in social situations, who are smooth with the girls, menting you. and who have the ability to interact with everyone. The reputation of the fraternity is very important. There’s always friction between the fraternity and the university. In fact, the university has a frater- Is there any organized hazing that nity council that oversees everything; if those on the council feel } involves all of the pledges at once? that a fraternity is doing something wrong, they can stop allowing No, other than during “hell week,” hazing is the fraternity to have parties or completely disembody the frater- pretty much limited to those who break the rules. nity itself. I’ve seen this happen to two different fraternities. The Here’s the thing, though; there are so many rules council just shut them down. that it’s impossible to remember them all. Plus, they’re arbitrary and hard to follow. They’re de- 04 FACT FINDS signed to make sure that you break them. No one escapes the hazing. The rule I had trouble with ------was “no smoking” (this only applied to the pledg- 2 Across the pond, Exeter University has suspended the Evan- es, of course). I would try to sneak cigarettes, but gelical Christian Union (ECU) and frozen its bank account I got caught a few times. When I did get caught, I because the organization asked its members to sign a statement had to smoke cigarettes soaked in Tabasco sauce. of religious belief. The union’s meetings are open to all, but It was really disgusting. The goal is to belittle members who seek to lead the group must sign the statement, the pledge to the point that he feels like he is which both declares that Jesus is their God and savior and af- absolutely nothing. As I said before, it starts with firms traditional values. ECU is seeking judicial review at the physical activity—running and pushups—but then High Court. • you have to start eating and drinking revolting things.

56 salvo issue 5 Frat or Fiction?

ure, there are some fraternities out there that contribute meaningfully to both their Shost institutions and the outside communi- ty—that forswear the drinking, sex, hazing, and drug use that characterize their counterparts. But how prevalent are such groups? One indica- tor may be what fraternities as a whole spend on legal liability and insurance costs. According to Encarta, nearly a third of their annual bud- gets are devoted to such expenditures, and one out of every four fraternity insurance claims results from the death, paralysis, or other serious injury of a student in connection with hazing, sexual assault, or alcohol abuse. Another indicator may be the statistics on binge drinking. For example, Mothers Against Drunk Driving reports that an average of 1,400 college students die each year from alcohol poisoning, the majority of whom did their imbibing at a fraternity or sorority party. And then there is the recent study conducted by Harvard University that discovered that one in twenty female students is raped during any given school year (72% are drunk at the time). Once again, fraternities are largely to blame for these assaults, as well as for the facilitation of the drinking that led to them. So how many fraternities have set aside such shameful conduct? While it’s difficult to say for sure, the figures above suggest that it can’t be too many. The myth that most fraternities have disavowed their wild ways is clearly just that—a work of fiction—which makes the harmless frats more of an exception than the rule.

Were you ever forced to drink alcohol for drunk driving, but that’s about it as long as you don’t wander } in excess? off. We even did a lot of drinking at local bars. The fraternity pays Well, I never was. There were times when pledges a ton of money for bar tabs, so the bar owners likewise turn a were required to be the drunkest people at a blind eye to underage drinking. Here’s the thing: The fraternities party, but the actives overseeing those pledges have been around a long time, so there’s a precedent for every- would watch to make sure that no alcohol poison- thing that occurs within them. What my fraternity does today ing occurred. They would usually force-feed them are the same things that it did when my dad was an active—the a loaf of bread before the party. Most of the time, parties, the hazing, everything. The community has probably just we were never asked to do anything that could grown used to it with time. have resulted in permanent bodily harm, although there was this one occasion when they decided to shock us with cattle prods on our bare skin. A lot Do you think hazing has become progressively of guys lost it at that moment. To be honest, most } worse over the years? of us cried at some point or another. But once the Maybe for awhile, but now it’s diminishing. The high point was crying starts, the actives will begin taking it easy probably the mid-1980s. But since then, because of accidental on you. They do care about each pledge; other- deaths and lawsuits and new university rules, things are much wise, they wouldn’t have asked you in. Of course, calmer than they once were. Plus, colleges such as mine have got- a couple of the older actives didn’t really care ten harder and harder to get into, so the average student is smart- about anyone, so they were happy to see you cry. er today than he was twenty or thirty years ago. Current pledges A few pledges dropped out because of the hazing, just aren’t willing to do as much as those who came before them. which is fairly typical from what I understand. Some of the hazing is good in that it brings the pledges together, but much of it is unnecessary, and a lot of people see that now. The unnecessary hazing is dying down. } How old were you at this time? I was 18, which is crazy, I know. I sometimes wonder how the fraternity gets away with such But is any of it really necessary? What is the pur- wild stuff when so much of it involves underage } pose of hazing? pledges. I’m guessing that the police just ignore it Well, the main purpose is to bind you together with your pledge as long as everyone stays on the fraternity-house class so that you learn to rely on each other. And it really does grounds. The fraternity does hire security guards work. I remember that after I was finally initiated, I felt such a to watch the gates at parties—mostly to ensure sense of accomplishment—and so did everyone else. All of us that a party stays put. I mean, you can be arrested pledges, whether we were close friends or not, had a bond. I felt

salvo spring 08 57 amazing after the hazing was over—like I had a million friends. expected to match up with them. They don’t have After the initial excitement, however, the feeling begins to wear to, of course, but they always do because they off. I remained pretty tight with about fifteen of my pledge broth- want to be seen with fraternity members, espe- ers, and we’re pretty close even today, but I haven’t kept up with cially those from the fraternity I was in. Basically, the other fifteen or twenty. There were just too many of us. fraternities see sororities as a source of willing sex- ual partners. It all goes back to pledgeship when the fraternity requires you to attend parties with So after the hazing, there’s a special night for three dates at once. You are taught that being in a } initiation? fraternity means that you have to “get” girls—and Actually, it’s a whole week—we call it “hell week”—and it’s at a lot of them. The sororities reciprocate by teach- this point that the hazing reaches its pinnacle. Classes are still in ing their members to be somewhat sluttish. They session for part of it, but the fraternity saves the worst for the promote “hook-ups” with fraternity guys, so long weekend. It’s very scary because you know that the hazing will as the girls spread them out over the year. In other now be systematic—that all of the pledges will be forced to do words, the sororities teach their members to be terrible things as a group. You know the actives aren’t going to kill sluts, but they don’t want them to appear sluttish. you or anything, but it certainly feels like they could. The frater- nity takes you out to one of the actives’ ranches or some other secluded spot, and then it begins. About all I can tell you is that you What did all of these parties and endure a series of hard physical activities and are made to eat and sexual encounters do to your spiritual drink disgusting things. There’s much more to it, of course, but we } life? Did you go to church or any- were sworn to secrecy. At the end, there’s a ceremony; the cabinet thing like that? members come out in their robes and initiate you. The ceremony is Yeah, a few times. Sometimes I would even go with heavily ritualized. All kinds of secret things take place that I can’t other members, but not very often. The fraternity talk about. It used to be that all of the secrecy was another way of sponsors a once-a-week Bible study, and I also went binding the fraternity together, but having experienced it, I think to that a few times. But it just got in the way of ev- that it now serves to keep the university administration in the dark. erything else; it was hard to even go to that. Plus, some of the members in the Bible study were the same guys who would go crazy on the weekends. It What is the fraternity’s function once you’re a seemed so hypocritical and hard to justify. But now } member? that I think about it, I don’t think anyone ever did To facilitate partying. Every weekend, there’s some sort of party try to justify it. I guess they felt like the contradic- to attend, whether it’s one of the big fraternity parties or smaller tion was just part of the college experience. gatherings. Basically, the fraternity serves to make partying read- ily available to anyone who wants to participate in it. And it’s very easy to get so caught up in the parties that you forget about Was the hypocrisy one of the things school. They make you think that the fraternity is the sole reason that caused you eventually to quit the for being in college. For the most part, the parties involve heavy } fraternity? drinking. There is some drug use, but drugs are generally looked Yes, that and I was tired of paying dues. It costs a down upon. There are a few members who do them, but they try lot of money to be in a fraternity, and I just didn’t to conceal it the best that they can. The one exception is the ADHD think it was worth it anymore. The fraternity pro- drug Adderall. Adderall helps you stay awake at night and focuses vides meals and everything else with that money, your attention, so a lot of students take it to help them study. but I finally realized that I was essentially paying I would estimate that about 75% of the fraternity—and about to have my morals compromised. I really can’t 50% of the entire campus—take ADHD drugs. I should also point recommend fraternity life. I suppose for someone out that there was one person in the fraternity who didn’t drink who is extremely confident in his worldview and or take drugs. He was what’s called a “dry member.” He made it knows that he is stable, it might be all right. Oth- known at the very beginning that he wasn’t going to drink, and erwise, I would stay away from it. It’s so easy with while he was harassed for it at first, everyone eventually got used a big group of guys to only care about having fun, to it. So it’s possible to be in a fraternity and not drink. drinking, and that kind of thing—to rid yourself of any moral obligations that you once had. Going into the fraternity, I thought there were things What about girls? What’s the relationship like that I would never do, but I was wrong. It has } between fraternities and sororities? taken me over a year to even begin rebuilding my The sororities essentially function as a readymade storehouse of moral center. The fraternity just sort of killed off girls for the fraternities. They make it easy for members to get everything that was once important to me. The dates for the various parties and formals because the girls are truth is, I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same.

58 salvo issue 5 SPECIAL FORCES //interrogate_with Greg Koukl Crimes of the Heart Should It Be Illegal to Hate?

Since this brutal murder in Wyoming in 1998, the ef- fort to pass hate-crime legislation—with expanded lan- guage to include “sexual preference”—has shifted into overdrive. But in spite of its proper intent to curb such attacks, this kind of legislation is ill-conceived. For one thing, there is now some doubt about whether the murder of Matthew Shepard actually resulted from hate. New evidence suggests that his killers were really after money for drugs and assumed that the well-dressed Shepard was carrying a lot of cash. Just because a crime’s victim hails from a “protected” group of people doesn’t was fi rst introduced to the concept of hate crimes necessarily mean that he was also the victim of hate. Mo- like most Americans—from the front page of the tives are slippery things, and mistakes in their attribution morning paper. When I began reading the details of are inevitable. the story, I was sickened. By the time I fi nished the But even if one could somehow pinpoint the inspira- account in the LA Times, I wanted to cry. tion for a given misdeed, I would still be against hate-crime I Several years ago in Laramie, Wyoming, a homo- laws for three reasons. First, they criminalize thought, sexual student from the university there had been brutally not behavior. Second, they do not protect individuals, but beaten, robbed, and tied to a wooden ranch fence. He was rather select classes of people. Third, they actually encour- found unconscious by a man on a bicycle who fi rst thought age hostility towards one group of people: Christians. that he was a scarecrow. The police arrested two men and two women in con- Criminal Thought nection with the attack. The men allegedly lured their George Orwell once said that sometimes the fi rst duty of victim from the Fireside Bar, a campus hangout, by telling a responsible person is to restate the obvious. Note the him that they were gay. They drove in a truck to a remote obvious: Hate-crime law criminalizes thought, not conduct. spot and beat the young man mercilessly. His skull was Assault is already punishable under existing statutes. But smashed with a handgun. His hands and face were cut, this sort of legislation levies an additional penalty solely and his body was burned. Strung up on the fence, he was for an attitude of the heart: a motive called hate. exposed overnight to 30-degree temperatures. His life was One of our most cherished freedoms is the liberty to hanging by a thread. A few days later, at a hospital in Fort think as we see fi t, even if our thoughts are ignoble. A Collins, Colorado, 22-year-old Matthew Shepard died. man’s inner life was once his own. His conduct was under

salvo spring 08 59 ate-crime legislation, then, turns out to be not H really about hate, but about politics. It’s not hatred for the victim that is punished. That’s covered under existing statutes. Rather, it’s hatred for a protected class that’s punished under hate-crime laws.

jurisdiction of the law, but not his convictions. Thoughts little cause for comfort. World magazine reports that could not be made criminal. Until recently, the law has been completely uninter- at least one Saskatchewan court has already held ested in penalizing motive. Whether one was driven to that certain Bible passages expose homosexuals commit a crime by greed, malice, love, or hate was irrel- to hatred. Even without C-250, London, Ontario evant. Only the conduct mattered. As far as the law was offi cials recently slapped a Christian mayor with a concerned, one could believe as he wished. He could like $10,000 fi ne for refusing to proclaim “Gay Pride or dislike according to his whim. He could love or hate as Day.” A Christian businessman in Toronto was he pleased. fi ned $5,000 for refusing to print materials for a Hate-crime legislation changes all that. Now, motive gay-rights group. as well as conduct can be punished. This is a frightening step. “At the end of the day,” writes former ambassador Hate-crime legislation doesn’t just criminalize thought Alan Keyes, “government can govern men’s actions; it can- and, in Canada, speech. It also creates another anomaly. not govern their hearts. And when it attempts to govern Isn’t it odd that, in this case, assaults animated by emotion their hearts, that is simply an excuse for the worst kind of are considered more abhorrent, not less? Generally, pas- tyranny.” sion is a mitigating factor. Courts show leniency for crimes Keyes’s remarks are not mere hyperbole. In April 2004, committed under its infl uence, reserving their greatest by a vote of 59 to 11, the Canadian Parliament passed bill condemnation for calculated evil: thus the difference be- C-250, criminalizing the expression of “hate” for homo- tween fi rst- and second-degree murder. sexuality. The text reads: Hate-crime legislation turns that equation on its head. Is a hit-man more noble because he lacks an emotional Everyone who, by communicating statements, connection to his victim? A person who commits a crime other than in private conversation, willfully pro- of passion is immoral, granted. But isn’t it more twisted to motes hatred against any identifi able group is assault, torment, or murder with total emotional detach- guilty of . . . an indictable offence and is liable to ment? Such a person is not just immoral; he’s a monster. imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years. Further, the present trend is toward making the mo- tive more serious than the assault itself. Representative This is just the fi rst step. Svend Robinson, the MP who Barbara Cubin (R-Wyoming) said, “We will not stand for authored C-250, wants the law to go beyond punishing the arbitrary killing of other people due to any hateful act “incitement to hatred” to criminalizing anti-homosexual of intolerance.” And Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan speech itself. It makes one wonder how an unfettered said, “Angelinos have no tolerance for crimes motivated debate on same-sex marriage will be able to proceed (“All by hatred or bias of any kind.” (Emphasis added in both.) those opposed to same-sex marriage . . . you’re under Why the qualifi cations? Just say that “we will not arrest”). stand for the killing of other people. Period.” The crime The thin religious exemption included in C-250 gives itself provides reason to lament, but in these cases it’s the

60 salvo issue 5 1969 18 U.S.C. § 245 (b)(2) Permits the federal prosecution of anyone who “by force or threat of force willfully injures, intimi- dates or interferes with . . . any person because of his race, color, religion, or national origin” while that person is attempting to engage in a protected activity.

1990 Hate Crime Statistics Act Requires the Attorney General to keep track of crimes committed because of the victim’s race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or ethnic- ity. The Department of Justice and the FBI must publish an annual report of the Attorney General’s findings. Hate-Crime 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act Requires the United States Sentencing Commission Laws to increase the penalties for crimes motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived race, color, reli- urrent federal statutes authorize gion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, the prosecution of hate crimes that or sexual orientation. Cwere motivated by the victim’s race, color, religion, or national origin while the 1997 victim was engaged in a federally pro- Campus Hate Crimes Right to Know Act Requires college security personnel to collect and tected activity, such as voting or attending release statistics on campus crimes committed on school. However, some lawmakers have the basis of race, gender, religion, sexual orienta- been attempting to expand these stat- tion, ethnicity, or disability. utes to include gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability in the list of 2007 “protected” groups, as well as to remove Matthew Shepard Act the prerequisite that victims be engaged If enacted, it would expand hate-crime laws to in particular activities. Following is a brief include crimes committed on the basis of actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender iden- history of federal hate-crime legislation— tity, or disability, as well as remove the prerequi- those laws already enacted and one that is site that victims be engaged in federally protected still under consideration. activities.

motive that causes the outcry. But it’s worse than that. tionary, “hate implies a feeling of great dislike or aversion, Hate-crime legislation doesn’t make all hate connected and, with persons as the object, connotes the bearing of with assault illegal, only certain types of hate. malice.” On this meaning, virtually any crime of passion could be construed as a hate crime because it entails mal- A Class Action ice towards persons. This is the second consequence of hate-crime legislation. However, all crimes of passion are not actionable as To paraphrase a line from George Orwell’s Animal Farm, hate crimes. Why not? Because they don’t involve a pro- though all hate is equal, some hate is more equal than tected class of people. This raises a question. Is hate-crime others. legislation about hate per se, or is it really about some- Consider this: According to Webster’s New World Dic- thing else?

salvo spring 08 61 Columnist George Will observed that such laws mandate penalties for par- ticular government-disapproved states of mind. He is only partially correct. The ate-crime legislation is not the answer. government is not as concerned with the hateful state of mind as it is with the HIt turns the government into thought particular group of people toward whom police, and it turns the law into a club to the hate is directed. The result of criminalizing malice enforce political correctness. under certain circumstances is that only certain types of people get protected. Will observes, “Surely Shepard’s assail- ants would deserve no less severity if he were not gay and their motive had been, as it may partly gay” Christians do not act in the name of Jesus. Rather, have been, pure sadism.” “Christian rhetoric . . . stirring hate” contributed to the Yet this is not the case. In a state with hate-crime leg- death of Matthew Shepard. In the LA Times, Robert Scheer islation, penalties levied for an assault on me personally said, “Traffi cking in the presumed judgments of the divine would be milder by statutory requirement than for the is a road map to the outer limits of civic intolerance.” very same assault on a Matthew Shepard. Why? Because as They have joined a chorus of voices claiming that a straight, white male, I do not belong to a class protected Christians, through their moralizing, are promoting a by this law. climate of hate. The phrase of choice is “less than.” By Hate-crime legislation, then, turns out to be not claiming that homosexuality is evil, Christians demote ho- really about hate, but about politics. It’s not hatred for mosexuals to a “less than” status. If a homosexual is “less the victim that is punished. That’s covered under existing than,” he is marked in a way that makes him an object of statutes. Rather, it’s hatred for a protected class—African- scorn, hatred, and physical abuse. Americans, Jews, homosexuals, and so on—that’s punished This is twisted logic. In Los Angeles, KABC talk-show under hate-crime laws. host Al Rantel—himself a homosexual—noted that this Such legislation makes two crimes out of one. The kind of thinking would make Alcoholics Anonymous murder is a crime against the victim. The hate is a crime responsible every time a drunk gets beat up in an alley. against the victim’s group. Yet how does one make sense It simply does not follow that moral condemnation of of a crime against a group that is a different crime from homosexuality encourages gay-bashing any more than the one against the victim? condemning Christian “intolerance” promotes Christian- Groups have no rights according to the Constitu- bashing. tion. Only individual persons have rights (or groups that Such a tactic can be turned back on those who use it. become legal persons, such as corporations). Even class- According to them, taking a moral position is called hate. action lawsuits follow this pattern. Only individuals who But objecting to hate is also a moral position. Are those are harmed can collect damages, even though their case is who demonize Christians for their views equally guilty of argued collectively. hate-mongering? Clearly, this kind of attack is not really Hate-crime laws create a whole new category of face- about principle, but, once again, about politics. less, personless victims—the injured class. They identify Columnist John Leo noted that “the political advan- crimes against no one in particular but that are crimes tage of using ‘climate’ arguments is that you can discredit nonetheless—offenses that are punishable. They don’t principled opposition without bothering to engage it. All prohibit all hate, only politically incorrect hate. you have to do is connect the pope, your local rabbi, or any other adversary to a gruesome murder, and your work A “Climate” of Hate is done.” Leo concludes: “Beware of arguments based on Just as these laws are used to defend certain classes of climates or atmospheres. Most of them are simply at- people, they can also be used to oppress a certain class of tempts to disparage opponents and squelch legitimate people. They can serve as a legal tool to enforce a par- debate.” ticular moral and political point of view that goes by the Hate-crime legislation is not the answer. It turns the misnomer “tolerance.” This is the third problem with hate- government into thought police, and it turns the law into crime legislation. It encourages many to actually blame a club to enforce political correctness. Those felled by its religious individuals—specifi cally orthodox Christians— blow will be Christians and others like them. Instead, exist- for incidents such as the death of Matthew Shepard. ing laws should be enforced to give equal protection to all As soon as the terrible incident in Wyoming hit the classes of people, punishing the crime and not the frame national press, a torrent of criticism descended upon the of mind. Christian community. Martin Marty, a prominent religious thinker from the University of Chicago, wrote that “ anti- Brought to you by Stand to Reason: str.org

62 salvo issue 5 DISPATCHES

Quad Pro Quo

“Here’s Your Money,” Say Today’s College Students, “Now Give Us Our Degrees.” By Marcia Segelstein

salvo spring 08 63 Such numbers reflect an enthusiasm for higher educa- tion on the part of those former soldiers, who would ordinarily have never seen the inside of a college classroom. By 1952, veter- ans accounted for 49 percent of all college students. Altogether, it is estimated that 2.2 million vets took advantage of the op- portunity presented by the GI Bill and enrolled in college. It was a revolution of sorts, a transforma- tion of higher education, to say nothing of the transformation of the participants’ lives. With college degrees in hand and, more importantly, the education that those degrees represented, countless veterans went from being poor blue-collar workers to middle-class white-collar workers. Tom Brokaw writes about this phenomenon in his book The Greatest Generation: erhaps the defining event in the history of modern higher education was the pas- Campus classrooms . . . were overflowing with sage of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act young men in their mid- twenties, many of whom of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill of had never expected to Rights. Enacted in large part as a reaction get a college education. They left those cam- to what was widely viewed as the poor puses with degrees and a determination to make treatment of World War I vets and their up for lost time. They subsequent suffering during the Great were a new kind of army now, moving onto the Depression, the GI Bill offered veterans a variety of assistance pro- landscapes of industry, grams. Among them was the payment of tuition up to $500 per science, art, public policy, P all the fields of American school year, along with the right to receive a monthly living allow- life, bringing to them the same passion and ance while in school. discipline that had served them so well during the In the end, it didn’t matter that the bill almost didn’t pass. One tie- war. breaking vote opened the door of higher education to hundreds of thousands of returning veterans. Many men who would oth- GI Joes were transformed into Average Joes erwise have flooded the job market eagerly seized what was for who were anything but average. Having helped them the opportunity of a lifetime: a college education. save the world from a terrifying and tenacious Before World War II, college was a largely unattainable goal enemy, they were now well-educated homeown- for average Americans. Only ten percent attended college before ers, breadwinners, fathers, and stalwarts of a the war. It was, in fact, primarily a luxury of the upper-middle newly growing middle class. And while this new classes, along with those few who could obtain scholarships. Two middle class was busy working and raising what years before the war, approximately 160,000 Americans were en- would become the Baby-Boom generation, there rolled in college. By 1950, the number was almost 500,000. was another revolution of sorts taking place on

64 salvo issue 5 college campuses—the fall of the Protestant estab- lishment in America and the reverberations that followed. David Brooks, in his book BOBOS in Paradise (“BOBOS” being “bourgeois bohemians”), paints a vivid picture of this establishment and how it controlled higher education:

In the 1920s, sensing a threat to the “character” of their institutions, Ivy League administrators tightened their official or unofficial Jewish quotas . . . Columbia reduced the proportion of Jews can be said of the grandchildren? In the past twenty years, the . . . from 40 to 20 percent in two years. number of college degrees handed out annually has more than At Harvard, President A. Lawrence Lowell doubled. So certainly they are attending college in droves. But diagnosed a “Jewish Problem” and also with what attitude and to what end? enforced quotas to help solve it. Peter Sacks took up the question in his 1996 book, Generation X Goes to College. What Sacks found when he left journalism to But by the late 1950s and early 1960s, such become a college professor was an overarching lack of interest on discrimination was seen for what it was—unjust the part of the students—what he identifies as a kind of disen- discrimination—and class hierarchies began to gagement. He describes a typical classroom scene: topple. Brooks continues: Scattered mostly in the back and far side rows were young The campus gates were thus thrown open males with professional sports baseball caps, often worn on the basis of brains rather than blood, backwards. Completing the uniform . . . was usually a pair and within a few short years the univer- of baggy shorts, a team T-shirt, and an ample attitude. sity landscape was transformed. Harvard Slumped in their chairs, they stared at me with looks of . . . was changed from a school for the disdain and boredom, as if to say, “Who in hell cares? Say well-connected to a school for brainy something to amuse me.” strivers. The remaining top schools elimi- nated their Jewish quotas and eventually According to Sacks, today’s college students have been “con- dropped their restrictions on women. ditioned by an overly nurturing, hand-holding educational system not to take responsibility for their own actions.” He blames a Those newly opened gates helped lead to an system that has become “customer-driven.” Administrators want explosion in the number of Americans getting a students to be happy so that enrollment remains high. And fearing higher education. Brooks cites the following sta- lack of support from administrators, teachers have become reluc- tistic to make the case: “By 1960 there were about tant to hold students to high standards. As Sacks writes, “Excel- 2,000 institutions of higher learning. By 1980 there lence wasn’t really the point . . . [T]he real point was whether you were 3,200. In 1960 there were 235,000 professors kept students sufficiently amused and entertained.” in the United States. By 1980 there were 685,000.” One measure of the quality of a college education these days Brooks’s theory, nicely expounded in his very might be drawn from a list of some of the courses offered. Here readable book, is that, partly due to this rapid are but a few of the more egregious examples in recent years: expansion of the educated class, America became “Canine Cultural Studies,” “History of Electronic Dance Music,” a true meritocracy, Horatio Alger stories aside. “Cultural History of Rap,” “Music of the Grateful Dead,” “Taking Family connections mattered less. Brains and abil- Marx Seriously,” “Sex Change City: Theorizing History in Gender- ity mattered more, as did the name of the college queer San Francisco,” and “The Phallus.” or graduate school on your résumé. With courses such as these, it’s no wonder that today’s col- Like the veterans who so enthusiastically and lege seniors score, on average, little or no higher than high-school overwhelmingly took advantage of the opportu- graduates did fifty years ago, according to a survey commissioned nity to get a college education, Baby Boomers of by the National Association of Scholars. There are also these de- varying stripes in their turn did the same. With a pressing results from a 1993 Department of Education survey of zeal to transform themselves and the world, they college graduates: 56 percent couldn’t calculate a correct tip, and flooded college campuses across America. over 90 percent couldn’t figure out the cost of carpeting a room— If “passionate and eager” can be used to and they were allowed to use calculators! describe the attitudes of the Greatest Generation In a piece written for The Boston Globe a couple of years ago, and their children towards higher education, what college professor Michael Kryzanek decried both the quality of

salvo spring 08 65 education many of today’s college students receive and the lack the findings of the Commission on the Future of of interest they have in actual learning. He cites a study by the Higher Education. “Less than half of all [high- National Center for Education Statistics that found that only 31 school] graduates are prepared for college-level percent of college graduates could read a “complex book and ex- math and science,” she said. “As a result, college trapolate from it.” The same study also found that many students students and taxpayers spend over a billion dollars graduate from college lacking “the skills needed to comprehend a year on remedial education just to teach stu- routine data, such as reading a table about the relationship be- dents the basic skills they should have learned in tween blood pressure and physical activity.” high school.” Kryzanek, who has taught at the college level for more than And speaking of billions of dollars, there is thirty years, is not surprised by the study’s findings. Based on his also the issue of college costs, addressed by Secre- own experience and frequent discussions with colleagues, he con- tary Spellings in the same speech: cludes that Over the last 25 years, college tuition students today have little interest in what past genera- increases have outpaced inflation, family tions of college students accepted as an essential edu- income, even health care. In the past five cation. Reading the literature of “dead white guys,” years alone, tuition at four-year colleges studying the relevancy of a 400-year-old historical event, has skyrocketed by 35 percent. . . . The re- and thinking about the meaning of life’s mysteries are not ality is that as costs skyrocket, it becomes of great interest to a growing number of college students. increasingly difficult for middle-class Now it’s all about focusing on a career path, studying nar- families to afford college. And for low- rowly about the skills required of that career path, and income, mostly minority students, college then crossing the stage on graduation day. is becoming virtually unattainable.

When syndicated columnist Walter Williams wrote about the According to statistics cited by The New York sorry state of higher education, many readers responded with tell- Times in 2006, annual private-college costs 30 ing tales of their own. An English professor shared this anecdote, years ago equaled 21 weeks of average pay for which Williams included in a follow-up column: an American worker. Now that figure is 53 weeks. In other words, on average, it takes more than a One of the items that I assigned was a two-page essay year of work to pay for a year at a private college. that described a favorite vacation or holiday. One student The business of going to college has become just turned in two pictures drawn with crayon depicting the that—big business. Colleges need students, and as beach. When I gave her a failing grade, she was indignant Peter Sacks writes, they have become “customer- and said that she put a great deal of work into the pic- driven” as a result. Absurd course offerings and tures. When I told her that she did not do the assignment lower standards attest to that. and that she was supposed to write an essay, she said, And then there is the parent factor. Baby- “But I don’t know what an essay is!” Boom parents have been famously accused of over-scheduling their kids from toddlerhood on Students who are ill-prepared for higher education have up, in effect building their résumés starting with become the subject of serious concern. According to a US Depart- preschool. Proof that parents want their kids to ment of Education study, nearly half of college students have to get into good colleges and will do almost anything take remedial courses in reading and math. And according to the to make that happen is evidenced by what one National Center for Education Statistics, nearly 80 percent of col- educator calls the “multi-billion-dollar industry of leges provided some type of remedial services in 2000. SAT prep courses, tutors and college-visiting week- In an address to North Carolina State University last year, US ends.” And as one high-school guidance counselor Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings spoke about some of working in an upscale suburban community put it, “For many parents, it’s all about the right college 05 FACT FINDS sticker on the back of the Lexus.” The sheer cost of college brings parents into ------play in other ways, too. The same high-school 2 The Missouri legislature has convinced the University of Mis- guidance counselor explains: souri (UM) that it has a problem with professors who push their political or religious views on students. Consequently, UM has Many parents aren’t willing to shell out set up a website on which students can post academic-diversity $45,000 a year so their kids can explore complaints against their instructors. The university will compile Greek literature or major in medieval mu- the grievances and then publish them in an annual report. • sic. In previous generations, college was more about the free flow of ideas, as op-

66 salvo issue 5 Civic Disengagement

ccording to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), American freedom can only survive if each generation understands the nation’s Afounding principles and the sacrifices that must be made to maintain them. Toward this end, ISI commissioned researchers at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy to survey some 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges in order to find out whether our academic institu- tions are indeed preparing students to be knowledgeable citizens. In the fall of 2006, the freshmen and seniors were asked 60 multiple-choice questions in four subject areas—American history, government, international rela- tions, and market economy—and the results were abysmal. Published earlier this year in a booklet titled Failing Our Students, Failing America, the aver- age score among seniors on the American civic literacy exam was 54.2%—a failing grade no matter how you slice it. Here are ISI’s other findings:

1. “Colleges Stall 2. “America’s Most 3. “Inadequate 4. “Greater Learning Student Learning Prestigious Universi- College Curriculum about America Goes about America.” ties Performed the Contributes to Hand-in-Hand

From kindergarten through Worst.” Failure.” with More Active the twelfth grade, the The better a school did in The average student gains Citizenship.” average student improves popular college rankings, one point of civic knowl- Those students who man- his civic knowledge by 2.3 the worse it performed in edge for each civics course aged to acquire more civic points a year, or twice the advancing civic knowledge. taken. However, the aver- knowledge in college than annual gain of the average ISI argues that elite schools age senior has taken only their peers were more likely college student. are centers of “negative four such courses. to vote and engage in other learning.” civic activities.

posed to being purely a path to a career. sage, something parents push for and orchestrate. There can be no question that there are far too many college students who are At current prices, parents can hardly be ill-prepared and who have little desire to do more than make it to blamed for wanting to see some bang for their graduation day. One wonders whether they would even compre- buck, so to speak. hend—much less be able to write an essay on—Thomas Jefferson’s One educator with more than 30 years’ experi- vision of higher education as expressed in his plan for the Univer- ence, split between teaching at the graduate- sity of Virginia. The purpose of college, according to Jefferson, is school level and serving as a high-school guidance counselor, thinks that there’s a lot to be said for to develop the reasoning facilities of our youth, enlarge kids coming up with their own college plans. their minds, and instill in them the precepts of virtue and Many, he believes, would be better off working order; to enlighten them with mathematical and physi- part-time and completing college in six years. cal sciences, which advance the arts and administer to the He also thinks that there is a “significant under- health, the subsistence and the comforts of human life. utilization of community colleges.” In the Mid- west, there isn’t a stigma attached to going to Unfortunately, the chief “precept of virtue” that the cur- community colleges such as there is in the North- rent college generation seems never to have learned—or been east and elsewhere. “And frankly, I think it makes taught—is to take responsibility for themselves and their actions. for healthier kids in some ways,” he says. Perhaps this is why, lacking such discipline, so many students these It’s difficult to quantify how many students days experience college as a business transaction or a means to an attend college just because it has become the end—a mere quid pro quo—rather than as the heady privilege that thing to do, a kind of entitlement, a rite of pas- both Jefferson and their own forebears held so dear.

salvo spring 08 67 SPECIAL FORCES //R & R_with Barbara Nicolosi Oscar Redux What the 2008 Academy Awards Reveal About the Culture

n Salvo 3, we had the privilege of speaking with of the recipients restrained their political impulses. Sure, screenwriter Barbara Nicolosi about the importance there were a couple of small political jokes by Jon Stewart, and influence of movies. Well, we were so impressed but it seemed pretty clear that even he knew what he with her insights that we decided to check in with was supposed to do, which was to give out awards. Those her on a quarterly basis to help us keep tabs on the nominated acted like they were there to get them. If it Imessages emanating from Hollywood. We are calling was boring to the audience, which it must have been, this ongoing series of interviews “R&R”—as in “rest and given its ratings, it was only because the show was finally recreation”—but you will soon realize that Nicolosi views doing what it was supposed to be doing all along. That filmgoing as anything but a passive activity. Rather, she said, another reason for the low ratings could be that would have us audience members thoroughly scrutinize there were no movies—other than Juno—for which a what we see at our theaters and multiplexes, noting not mainstream audience could cheer. only the craft of a given movie, but also the ideas that it communicates. It is thus somewhat fitting that we begin How so? our conversations together with a discussion of the 2008 Academy Awards. For perhaps nowhere are a culture’s at- Well, this was not a year when the audience was served titudes and perspectives more apparent than in the films with wonderful stories that are going to endure—that will that it celebrates. become part of the movie canon for the ages. No one will be watching No Country for Old Men in five years, I guar- What is your assessment of this year’s antee it; the only individuals who will care about it in the Oscars? least are film sociologists. People are going to look back at the last ten years of filmmaking and say, “What hap- This was one of the least narcissistic shows that I’ve ever pened? We went from Ben Hur, On the Waterfront, and seen the Academy do. It seemed to me that the focus this Casablanca to this?” Best Picture used to mean that the time really was on giving the awards. With the exception movie would last; it would speak to all ages and genera- of the guy who won the Oscar for Best Documentary, all tions. But the messages emanating from most of the films

68 salvo issue 5 nominated this year are not universal. Rather, they reflect There’s a whole group of people only our particular moment of cynicism and materialism. out there who hate Christians What can we learn from the types of films with a visceral passion, and nominated this year for Best Picture? watching the culminating scene If you really look at the films nominated—There Will Be in There Will Be Blood was for Blood, Juno, Michael Clayton, Atonement, and No Country for Old Men, which ended up winning the Oscar—what them what watching the Spice you see is four Baby-Boomer last gasps and one Gen-X channel is to sex addicts. opening peep. For the first time in ages, in other words, the Boomer movies became a part of the box-office fringe and the Gen-X movie became a part of the box-office start from the presupposition that life is sacred.” That’s my mainstream. The only film that made a lot of money was problem?! The Boomer generation has seen and done it all Juno; it made over $100 million but was shot for under since the 1960s, and the remains of its day are There Will $10 million. It used to be that Gen-X movies—Napoleon Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. And Atonement Dynamite, Pieces of April, Garden State, and so on—were fits right in as well; there isn’t any atonement in Atone- always the ones on the fringe, but now this is all going to ment. Forty years after everyone’s life is destroyed and change. To me, that’s tremendously encouraging because ruined, the lead character writes a line in a book to make I’ve been listening to the Boomers my whole life, and I’m up for it. Big deal! That’s not an atonement. sick of it. There Will Be Blood and No Country for Why? Old Men were the most celebrated of the

Because their movies are all about misery, meaningless- nominated films. What can you tell us ness, misanthropy, and nihilism. They admit that sin is bad, about these movies in particular? but then they argue that there’s no way out—that human life is a cruel joke. There’s also so much moral equivoca- If there’s anything hopeful about these films, it’s that the tion in these films, which basically sends the message that craft in both is quite impressive. The cinematography is “everybody sucks.” Look at The Departed from last year, beautiful, and the way their directors understand and use where even the hero was tainted with confused motives paradoxical images is extraordinary. In some sense, the and vileness. Or look at Crash. Who’s the good person in people in the industry were responding to that. To look at that film? I remember asking a writer of one these movies these movies from their standpoint, completely removed (I can’t say which), “Are you really that cynical about hu- from any sort of social-responsibility context, is to see two man life—about the possibility of goodness and holiness in directors who managed to create and preserve a tone us- human life?” And he said to me, “Your problem is that you ing all of the elements on the filmmaker’s palette—sound,

*In Order of Their Appearance

arbara Nicolosi is a human film encyclopedia, and she has the habit of namedropping movie titles in a manner that as- Bsumes we share her gift. Consequently, we thought it might be a good idea to include with each of our conversations with her a brief guide to the films she mentions, the hope being that this will help us keep pace with her vast cinematic knowledge. So here are the movies—in the order of their appearance.

Y Juno (2007) A high-school girl becomes pregnant, de- is betrayed and sold into slavery, then es- cides to have the baby, and then searches capes his captors and pursues revenge. for the perfect adoptive parents. On the Waterfront (1954) No Country for Old Men An ex-boxer becomes a longshoreman and then attempts to defy his corrupt union (2007) bosses. A hunter finds $2 million in lost drug money, decides to keep it, and is pursued by a bloodthirsty psychopath as a result. Casablanca (1942) An American expatriate helps an old lover and her husband escape the Nazis in Africa Ben-Hur (1959) at the start of World War II. The classic story of a Jewish prince who 2

salvo spring 08 69 style, performance, direction, cinematography, story, where the two most corrupting influences in human life and structure. And if the films are judged from this same are capitalism and religion. And not just capitalism, but standpoint, then No Country for Old Men is indeed the the oil industry in particular. The film is about a psychotic clear winner. It is an effective journey through nihilism— oil man who embarks on a barbaric cycle of insanity and an unrelieved, hopeless journey through nihilism. murder. And he is warring against this other guy who is a hypocritical Christian minister and who ends up getting his Is that the problem with the film as well? skull beaten in after screaming that God is a superstition and he himself is a phony. At the screening I attended here Yes. Once the film ended, I asked someone, “What did in Hollywood, people sneered and scoffed out loud every that movie say?” And she answered, “Don’t steal?” We time the Christian spoke. And when this character gets needed two and a half hours of ruthless violence for that? beaten in the head with a bowling pin, they yelled out God said the same thing in a single sentence. The funny “Yes!” with each blow. The only thing to which I can com- thing about the Coen brothers, who directed the movie, pare it is if one were to have shown a movie in 1932 Berlin is that they are obsessed with the theme “Crime doesn’t about a greedy Jewish banker. Art has a context, and this pay,” and I think they have begun to repeat themselves message—whatever director Paul Thomas Anderson was in their treatment of it. “Crime doesn’t pay” has been the trying to say with this movie—was conveyed at a moment subject of every one of their films, from Raising Arizona when people are calling followers of Jesus “Christianists” to Miller’s Crossing to Ladykillers to The Man Who Wasn’t and “Christers.” There to Fargo. You wonder whether someone in their family was a gangster or something. The Coen brothers That’s so disturbing. aren’t adding anything new to the equation, other than upping the level of brutality. Fargo relieved the brutality I know. There’s a whole group of people out there who with this wonderful character of the pregnant sheriff, but hate Christians with a visceral passion, and watching the No Country for Old Men was unrelenting. And there’s the culminating scene in There Will Be Blood was for them paradox: You have these extremely adept filmmakers who, what watching the Spice channel is to sex addicts. Am I as John Paul II would say, are really committed to beauty— saying that there wasn’t some good stuff in the movie— the epiphanies of beauty, at least in terms of craft—but that there wasn’t good craft? No, there was, and ultimate- they’re creating it in service to what Cardinal Schönborn ly, that’s why it was nominated, but it didn’t hurt that the calls an aesthetic of ugliness. They’re basically trying to political message was also completely transparent. What create the most beautiful picture of ugliness that they can. I don’t get is why Christian critics are raving about this movie, especially the Evangelicals. Maybe it can be attrib- And There Will Be Blood? uted to the fact that Evangelicals in this postmodern mo- ment so don’t want to be Jerry Falwell or James Dobson I think this movie got made and then raved about because that they join the chorus saying, “Yeah! Christians suck!” of the anti-Bush sentiment in Hollywood. It’s a movie These are the same people who argued that Christians

�mThere Will Be Blood (2007) Atonement (2007) An oil prospector in the early twentieth As a 13-year-old, a budding writer century rises to power, driven by his in- falsely accuses her older sister’s lover tense hatred of mankind and his desire to of a crime, ruining the lives of all see his competitors fail. involved.

Michael Clayton (2007) Napoleon Dynamite (2004) An attorney known as The Fixer chooses A comedy about a disaffected teenager IThe Departed (2006) to do the right thing for once in bringing who decides to help his new friend win the A detective and a member of the mafia down a corrupt agrochemicals company. election for class president at his school. each go undercover in the other’s world, and then their paths start to cross. Pieces of April (2003) A rebellious daughter invites her dying Crash (2004) mother and the rest of her estranged Several stories centered on racism inter- family to her ramshackle apartment for twine over the course of two days in Los Thanksgiving dinner. Angeles.

Garden State (2004) Raising Arizona (1987) A comedy about a troubled young man A comedy about a childless couple, an ex- who returns home for his mother’s funeral con and an ex-cop, who decide to kidnap after being away for ten years. one of a furniture manufacturer’s famous quintuplets. 2

70 salvo issue 5 needed to support The Da Vinci Code. I called them useful happier because there’s no remorse. Even at the end of idiots at the time, and I got in royal trouble for it. “But Juno, when Juno is crying with her boyfriend after giving this is a dialogue,” they insisted. “We can’t be afraid of a up her baby, it’s a mature sadness; there’s no remorse in dialogue.” And I said, “This is a movie that says that Jesus her. No one leaves the theater thinking that Juno might isn’t God—that he was a fraud—which makes your whole go out and kill herself. The audience knows that she will life a lie.” Similarly, when people say to me that There Will pick herself up, walk out, and continue to live. This same Be Blood is not anti-Christian, but rather a movie about feeling is present in all of the movies that you mentioned. one bad Christian, I respond, “Look; no one leaves the Compare that to a film such as The Cider House Rules, movie and says he wants to be a Christian. In fact, it makes which is the Boomer take on abortion from a few Oscars you think that if Christians aren’t hypocrites and phonies, ago. You feel like everyone is in danger of killing himself. then they’re dupes.” As you might be able to tell, this film It is absolutely despairing. bothered me tremendously. Abortions are at a record low, so perhaps Let’s move on to what seems to be a this resonates with what you’re talking more positive trend in recent movies. I’ve about. heard many people say, due to films such as Juno, Knocked Up, August Rush, and Perhaps so. This generation just doesn’t see abortion as a Waitress, that 2007 was the year of the heroic choice. Rather, it seems to understand that some- pro-life movie. Do you agree with this one will want these babies, even if the parents don’t. That’s the lovely turning point in Juno, when Juno looks at assessment? her friend and says, “Maybe I can give this baby to some- body who will love it.” It’s such a beautiful, selfless choice It depends on what you mean by pro-life. Those in this that is incomprehensible to the Boomers, who wouldn’t emerging generation of filmmakers grew up with ultra- dream of spending nine months carrying a pregnancy to sounds on their refrigerators, so it’s very hard to tell them term because of the way it would interfere with their lives. that the fetuses that they see are not people. They are also It really is an amazing reversal, and I don’t know where suffering from the survivor guilt of knowing that their sib- the Gen-Xers got it except out of their own pain. I think lings were aborted by choice. At the same time, however, they realize that their parents aren’t really happy with the they don’t want to judge their parents because they’ve choices they have made. been desperately longing their whole lives for their parents’ love and attention. So there’s nothing political This is an excerpt about the movies being made by these Gen-Xers—nothing from a much longer interview. politically pro-life. But these films definitely reflect a new To hear the complete, unedited version, culture of life. In the end, choosing life makes everyone please visit salvomag.com/r&r.php.

Miller’s Crossing (1990) The Man Who Wasn’t There An advisor to a Prohibition-era mafia boss (2001) tries to keep the peace between the Italian A barber blackmails his wife’s boss and and the Irish mobs. lover for money to invest in a dry-cleaning business. The Ladykillers (2004) A southern college professor and his ac- Fargo (1996) complices pose as a band while planning A dark comedy about a bungling used-car a casino robbery under the nose of their salesman whose inept criminal enterprise August Rush (2007) elderly landlord. falls apart due to double-dealing and the An orphaned musical prodigy uses his gift detective work of a pregnant police officer. as a clue to help locate his birth parents.

The Da Vinci Code (2006) Waitress (2007) Clues inside a Da Vinci painting lead to the A pregnant, unhappily married waitress solution to a blasphemous mystery that has in the deep south falls in love with a man been protected by a secret society for two who has just moved to her town. thousand years. IThe Cider House Rules (1999) YKnocked Up (2007) An elderly orphanage director, who also A slacker gets a girl pregnant during a happens to be an abortionist, trains one one-night stand, and the couple decides to of the orphans to be a doctor before the make a go of it. young man leaves to see the world.

salvo spring 08 71 SPECIAL FORCES //counter.intelligence_with S. T. Karnick Speech Impediments How Big Media Garble the First Amendment

ecent events have made it clearer than ever mumbling along and cursing like a sailor as Mike that today’s mainstream-media culture is & Mike rested their heads in their hands in embar- skewed to the distinct advantage of secular- rassment.’’ She was booed off the stage. ists, statists, and antinomian elites—and is increasingly closed to outsiders. This double That would be enough to get an ordinary person fired, Rstandard became grotesquely evident in the response to of course, but Jacobson then went on to say (using exple- recent comments by ESPN talking-head Dana Jacobson. tives indicated by first letter only here): “F*** Notre Dame, Providing further proof that America’s elites are F*** Touchdown Jesus, and F*** Jesus!” delighted when people of low mental ability use Chris- After this bizarre and unfathomable tirade, ESPN’s tians and Christianity as punching bags, ESPN suspended punishment of Jacobson consisted merely of a one-week sports-show anchor Jacobson for one week in late Janu- suspension, and it is not clear that her pay was withheld. ary after she indulged in a drunken, foul-mouthed public She may have received a one-week paid vacation for her tirade that included an astonishingly vulgar curse directed disgraceful public display. at Jesus Christ. Upon returning to her show on January 28, Jacobson At a January 11 roast of fellow ESPN personalities offered a rather cryptic apology: “I want to once again say Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, Jacobson, reportedly very how truly sorry I am for my poor choices and bad judg- drunk, launched into “a rambling speech that included ment that night. I’ve taken responsibility for what I did say vulgar references about Notre Dame.” Jacobson, a Univer- and do that night.” Certainly, no one would expect her to sity of Michigan grad, often exchanges on-air taunts with apologize for anything she did not do, so the use of the Golic, a Notre Dame alum, about the two schools. Accord- word “did” is redundant and indeed confusing. Evidently, ing to a Chicago Sun-Times report, the audience was not her intent was to imply that she did not say the most of- amused by Jacobson’s behavior at the roast: fensive thing attributed to her, yet neither Jacobson nor her ESPN bosses has denied that she said it. Thus, the word An article in The Press of Atlantic City the next “did” is intentional dissembling. Yet the controversy died day said that Jacobson ‘’made an absolute fool of out without further incident. herself, swilling vodka from a Belvedere bottle, The brevity of the suspension is very revealing of the

72 salvo issue 5 mentality of the management team at the Disney-owned sports network, given the terminations of radio host Don Imus and basketball commentator Tim Hardaway last year for vulgar but much milder offenses against accredited victim groups. Clearly, the only reason Jacobson was not sent packing and subjected to the same kind of universal condemna- tion accorded Imus and Hardaway is that her words were directed at Christians and the God of the Bible. One can hardly imagine how different the consequences would have been had Jacobson directed her invective at African- Americans, Muslims, homosexuals, or abortionists. Obvi- ously, she wouldn’t have survived a day, but because she chose to offend Christians, she was back at work in a week. Dana Jacobson This treatment also pales in comparison with the firing of analyst Stephen Coughlin from the US military’s Joint Staff for daring to ob- serve that jihad is inherent in Islam, as As the firings of Imus, Hardaway, and others well as the death threats against Dutch show, today’s media display a hypersensitivity politician Geert Wilders and the murder of Dutch columnist and filmmaker Theo to accusations of offense coming from certain Van Gogh for making similar observa- groups, and the private corporations that own tions. Ours is a culture in which some media animals are more equal than the mainstream-media outlets constantly give others, to paraphrase George Orwell’s in to such identity politics in an effort to avoid Animal Farm. Few in the media openly defended trouble—which only emboldens the attackers Jacobson’s comments, to be sure, but further. some chose to use the incident as an occasion for some logical jiu-jitsu intended to strengthen big media’s stranglehold over the York Times plagiarist and fabricator Jayson Blair, The New definition of acceptable speech. Chicago Sun-Times writer York Times editors Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd (both Greg Crouch asked in his January 25 column whether of whom resigned after revelations of multiple counts of Jacobson really did say the offensive words attributed to plagiarism and other acts of unethical journalism occurring her. That’s a good and reasonable question, but Crouch under their watch), and the dozens of other exemplars of ended up using it to purvey the tired argument that cor- blatantly unethical behavior among mainstream-media porate ownership and a college journalism degree make members in recent years. for credible journalism. In doing so, he shilled for a closed Equally indicative of the low standards and lower mor- culture from which Christians and other disfavored groups als of the mainstream media is the fact that when three are pointedly excluded to the extent possible. Duke University lacrosse players were accused of rape, the Crouch pointed out that the original report of press immediately convicted them before the public, citing Jacobson saying “F*** Jesus” came from a blog and their alleged crime as an example of institutionalized rac- had not been confirmed by eyewitness Scott Cronick of ism and other such hobgoblins. It was web journalists and The Press of Atlantic City, whom Crouch interviewed via columnists who argued from the beginning that the case telephone. Crouch reported that Cronick said he did not was an obvious frame-up. Correctly, as it turned out. believe Jacobson used the phrase “F*** Jesus.” Crouch was thus wrong to imply that the mainstream Crouch’s point was that mainstream journalists media are more reliable than alternative media, but he should not quote information from blogs because blog- was right to acknowledge that the evidence strongly sug- gers are not responsible journalists and thus not reliable gested that Jacobson said something so offensive that her news sources. Real journalists—whom Crouch appeared bosses didn’t want it confirmed, and that it probably was to define as people working for corporate newspapers, exactly what had been reported: magazines, TV shows, radio stations, and websites—check their facts and are “reliable,” he claimed. Apparently, ESPN has a tape of the event. [Christian Defense Crouch has never heard of Dan Rather (and his reliance on Coalition director, the Reverend Patrick J.] phony documents in a hit-piece on President George W. Mahoney said he spoke with an ESPN executive Bush), New Republic fabricator Stephen Glass, The New who didn’t deny that Jacobson had said it and

salvo spring 08 73 bosses refrained from denying that she did it and refused to allow anyone to see the evidence, it is certainly reason- able to infer that the rumors are true. Instead, ESPN rode it out, correctly concluding that the furor would die down quickly because it was, after all, only Christians who had been offended. Naturally, once Jacobson’s offense became public, numerous Christian organizations rose up to call for her firing. Although that reaction is certainly understandable and indeed justifiable, the real lesson of the Jacobson case should be that we need more evenhandedness in how offensive statements are dealt with. As the firings of Imus, Hardaway, and others show, today’s media display a hypersensitivity to accusations of offense coming from certain groups, and the private corporations that own the mainstream-media outlets constantly give in to these groups’ demands in an effort to avoid trouble—which only emboldens the attackers further. The tendency of various interest groups to complain about something somebody said or did that might be imagined as reflecting ill on some particular category of persons is a hallmark of identity politics—a brand of politics that raises its ugly head every day in America and snarls threateningly. It undermines freedom of speech Don Imus through largely private-sector means, by pressing the constant, intimidating threat of boycotts and government action. In short, it follows the political premises of fas- wouldn’t show the tape. So, Mahoney said, re- cism. How appropriate, then, that a recent, vivid example sponsibility is on ESPN. involved a TV program called Big Brother. I respect Mahoney’s passion, but his ground is In late February, an autism group demanded an apol- shaky. It is not becoming of a reverend to make an ogy from the CBS television network over a statement example of someone who might be innocent. made by a contestant on the show—which the network of That said, ESPN isn’t handling this right, ei- course never claimed represented the corporation’s policy ther. Why not show the tape? Jacobson’s apology or views. As the Associated Press reported, did say, ‘’I respect all religions.’’ Why would she say that? It is suspicious, when On the show, a contestant named Adam, who said neither ESPN nor Jacobson will stand up and he works for an autism foundation, said he would deny the rumors. ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz spend his winnings on a hair salon for people with wouldn’t hand the tape over to me, either. Why? developmental disabilities “so retards can get it together and get their hair done.” The Web site Why, indeed? Clearly, the web reports were more for the show describes him as a 29-year-old public reliable than Crouch wishes to admit. ESPN has a tape of relations manager from Del Ray Beach, Fla. the incident and could easily have ended the discussion His remark shocked his partner, Sheila, who if Jacobson was indeed innocent of the charge. Since her replied, “Don’t call them that.” Adam responded by saying, “Disabled kids. I can call them whatever I want. I work with them 06 FACT FINDS all day, OK?” ------2 The Student Governing Board at Columbia Univer- The notion that a TV network cannot even broadcast sity has just released the budgets for all of the school’s an exchange between two individuals over the etiquette political, activist, and religious organizations. While regarding how to refer to a particular group of people— Columbia’s three right-of-center clubs received a total especially a discussion that clearly makes the point for sen- of $1,975 in annual funds, the College Democrats alone sitivity in the matter—shows the absurd extent to which received $7,529. Meanwhile, the Muslim Students As- identity politics has pervaded American society. That, sociation received $15,000, and Students for Choice was combined with open favoritism toward various identity allotted $1,800. • groups, makes for a truly toxic culture, one in which those in accredited victim groups are allowed to say anything

74 salvo issue 5 Anti-Christ Superstars SPN’s Dana Jacobson is hardly the first celebrity to get away with anti-Christian rhetoric. Remember Rosie O’Donnell’s claim on The View that “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a Ecountry like America where we have separation of church and state”? And then there was actress Kathy Griffin’s acceptance speech at last year’s Emmy Awards. “A lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award,” Griffin said. “I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. . . . Suck it, Jesus!” Sir Ian McKellen, star of both The Lord of the Rings and The Da Vinci Code, recently told reporters that “the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front that says this is fiction,” while Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman dropped this lovely sentiment on one of her comedy-club audiences: “I hope the Jews did kill Christ. . . . I’d f***ing do it again in a second.” Meanwhile, HBO’s Bill Maher has insisted on numerous occasions that politically active Christians are “demagogues, con men, and scolds,” while media mogul Ted Turner has publicly stated that “Christianity is a religion for losers.” One could go on like this indefinitely, of course, but you get the general idea. The point is that in this era of political correctness, Christianity has become the last acceptable object of defamatory scorn. And while no one has suggested that we should drag Christians back into the Roman Coliseum, you get the sense that the cultural climate might be ripe for just such a proposition. “If they persecuted me,” Jesus told his followers, “they will also persecute you.” Perhaps for the first time ever, American Christians are beginning to feel the weight of his promise.

they want about others (everybody else) without any Adopting such an approach would greatly benefit consequences at all, while the others, as oppressors, must the mainstream media, enabling them to regain audi- not be allowed to speak. Offensiveness naturally increases ences among those currently subjected to frequent abuse among those who suffer no consequences for it, the others by media figures, as it has Fox News and the wide variety respond in alternative media outside the control of corpo- of alternative news and entertainment sources on the rate gatekeepers, and increasing social division follows. internet. This, then, is by no means a free culture, although If the mainstream media want to slow the emigra- its licentiousness and tolerance for vulgarity may make it tion to alternative sources of information and entertain- appear so. We will not have anything like a free culture ment, they will have to start soon and open their doors to until instead of judging people’s actions on the basis of different voices while instituting equal consequences for who claims offense, we judge them on the basis of how equal offenses against social comity. Until they drop their much they hurt, whomever they may harm. The censure agenda of identity politics, they will continue to drive their for offending one group must be exactly the same as that audiences toward their competition. For those who value accorded those who say equally offensive things about any freedom, harmony, and social mobility, this cannot happen other groups. too soon.

salvo spring 08 75 STANDARD OPS BLIPS A Ray of Hope Sun in an Empty Room An Edward Hopper Retrospective

Intimates Light at the End of the Tunnel (1963) by Edward Hopper

Featured by Julie Grisolano

brilliant individual- chaos and allowed it ist and a devotee to chew away at his of Realism, Edward belief in truth. His work Hopper (1882–1967) suggests that he felt is celebrated by increasingly isolated many critics as the and cut off from other Aiconic American artist of the twenti- people, so unrelenting is its portrayal Ellen Roberts decided to include in eth century. His paintings, currently of solitude and despair. As was the the exhibit Hopper’s fi nal work, Sun featured in a retrospective exhibit case with fi lm noir, which had such a in an Empty Room (1963), a paint- at the Art Institute of Chicago, are profound infl uence on him, Hopper ing that offers viewers some light scenes of isolation, unfulfi lled expec- depicted a world of lonely souls who at the end of the tunnel—a ray of tations, and disconnectedness—even have lost their connection to the rest hope that would seem to indicate when the backdrop is a crowded of society and resigned themselves that, in the end, Hopper managed to city or some other bustling environ- to the emptiness of their lives. rise above his sense of desolation. ment. Thus, Hopper’s art uniquely In Automat (1927), for example, At fi rst glance, this piece ap- refl ects not only the common a young woman sits alone at a res- pears to depict merely another scene American struggles of his day, but taurant table in despondency, while of emptyness—only this time no also man’s battle to fi nd mean- in New York Movie (1939), a solitary person is present. There is just the ing in our own tumultuous age. usherette stands in a theater aisle sun streaming through a window, To understand Edward Hopper, with a contemplative expression. illuminating a room’s vacancy. The one must fi rst understand the cul- And then there are the truly forlorn light refl ecting off the butter-toned tural events that punctuated his life. paintings—those in which two or walls gives the painting a feeling of Hopper lived and painted in an era of more individuals are present but warmth and comfort. When asked intense upheavals in politics, econom- without any apparent interaction what he was trying to convey with ics, philosophy, and art. As a child, between them. This is the situation it, Hopper replied, “I was after ME,” he lived through the extravagance in Offi ce at Night (1940), which il- which we might take to mean that and wealth of America’s Gilded Age; lustrates the longing of a secretary he was trying to recover a sense of while a teenager at the turn of the for an indifferent boss; Room in self with the work—some semblance century, he witnessed the growing New York (1932), which portrays a of meaning and purpose. One might acceptance of Modernism, a perni- wife separated from her husband reasonably assume, then, that the cious philosophical trend that ques- by the evening newspaper; and room is empty because Hopper tioned the traditions of the past; and Nighthawks (1942), Hopper’s famous himself is fi lling it, and that the throughout his life, he saw the rise painting of lonely late-night diners. light shining in on him represents and demise of such art movements Such themes are just as poignant the promise of . . . what? Transcen- as Futurism, Cubism, Surrealism, today as they were in Hopper’s dence? Connection? It’s diffi cult to Dadaism, and Abstract Expression- own time. What with the internet, say. But that Hopper seems to have ism. Hopper also lived through both virtual reality, video games, iPods, found something that cut through world wars, the Great Depression, and other alienating technologies, his loneliness and despair—after a and the emergence of jazz, commu- we are perhaps more isolated than lifetime of expressing gloom—should nism, and psychoanalysis. His was a ever, which may explain the timing give us hope in our alienating, post- time of constant change and chaos. of this particular Hopper retrospec- modern moment that we, too, can Hopper, like many Americans, tive. It may also explain why Art eventually fi nd meaning, provided seems to have internalized this Institute curators Judith Barter and we always reach toward the light.

76 salvo issue 5 \ All Jacked Up Conspiratorial and slight, this portrait of four teenagers who have ob- sessive and emotional eating habits blames parents, schools, and adver- Film tising companies for food-related disorders while excusing the choices of the teens themselves. Director Jennifer Mattox tries without success to convince viewers that she has uncovered a plot to undermine the health of an entire generation. You’re Rejected 5 This ham-handed attack on religious belief features a delusional “soldier of Christ” who believes that it is his job to tell gays that they are going to hell. Director Parthiban Shanmugam is responsible for the documentary, which defends homosexuality by portraying all opponents of the gay lobby in an equally extremist fashion. It’s a shameful piece of work—misleading and manipulative. Secrets of the Occult 5 In case you thought the occult is mere- ly reserved for those interested in such dangerous and demonic activities as crystal-ball gazing and astrology, this p The Separation film intends to set you straight. Indeed, on State Street it maintains that the occult comprises Speaking of heroes, director Robert St. Mary believes he any practice of an “undeveloped” has found one in Anonka, an belief that is shunned by society. You elderly witch who opened a museum in the small Christian guessed it: Occult practitioners are he- town of Caro, Michigan, that roes and rebels! Ridiculous. is dedicated to the suffering of the witch community at the hands of the Christian church. What Would As you might imagine, the evil Jesus Buy? \ and backward townspeople are none too pleased with the de- Funny, though verging at velopment. times on heresy, Rob Van- Alkemade’s “docu-comedy” is about a New York City na- tive who bleaches his hair and dons a white suit to street-preach on the evils of consumerism. Among Rev- erend Billy’s antics are an exorcism of the demons at Wal-Mart and a road trip to Disneyland to decry its brain- washing of children into over-consumptive behavior.

salvo spring 08 77 STANDARD OPS Choosing the Right College 5 By the Intercollegiate Studies Institute

Books If you’re headed for college and also found Salvo’s guide to colleges and universities helpful, then you must procure a copy of this book. It’s all here: over 1,000 pages of essays and reports on what one can truly expect at 134 of the nation’s top schools. For each college, ISI recommends the pro- fessors you should seek out, as well as the profs and departments to avoid. L Third Ways Great stuff! By Allan C. Carlson Tired of the greed and over- \ consumption inherent in Virus Mania By Torsten Engelbrecht and Claus Köhnlein capitalism but also recognize that collective communism is Pharmaceutical companies make a ton of a failed experiment? Then money by “attacking” such epidemics as avian this book might be for you. flu, HPV, and Hepatitis C, and the media en- Carlson, the president of the sures high ratings by reporting on the same Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, exam- in a sensational manner. But are we really in ines a few of the economic danger? Engelbrecht and Köhnlein argue that systems proposed over the the jury is still out on the matter, especially years that were centered on since scientists no longer test for viruses in a a humane culture of enter- prise. direct manner. Humanism for Parents 5 By Sean P. Curley In a book that would be laughable if it weren’t also so sad, Curley struggles to teach atheist parents how they, too, can raise spiritually healthy children without acceding to religion. Chief among his recommendations is to empha- size that morality and ethics are rooted in biology rather than God, thanks to the evolutionary advantages of reciprocal altruism and kin selection.

\ The Great Tradition Edited by Richard M. Gamble Given the sorry state of the curricula available at our secondary and post- secondary schools, it might be a good idea to embark on a little independent learning. This book should help. It contains readings in the classical and Christian traditions, everyone from Plato to Christopher Dawson, that explain what it really means to be an educated human being.

78 salvo issue 5 SPECIAL FORCES //parting.shot_with Herb London Mind Control Now Occurring at a University Near You

or middle-class parents who spend a king’s ran- have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dan- som to send their children off to college, there is gerous parents.” Indeed, parents who send their children the expectation that their offspring will receive to college should recognize that professors “are going an education in science, math, the humanities, to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your and the social sciences. This rite of passage is not children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious Fmerely an expensive dalliance; it is regarded as a union card for suc- cess. After all, the education pun- dits are always saying that a college degree pays for itself in increased rofessors in the university ought “to earnings. What these parents don’t arrange things so that students who know, however, is that universities P have become reeducation centers enter as bigoted, homophobic religious on the model of the old communist institutions that manipulated opin- fundamentalists will leave college with ion for “higher” purposes. Professor Richard Rorty, the views more like our own.” much acclaimed philosopher who shuffled off this mortal coil last June, argued that professors in the university ought “to arrange things so that students who community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists rather than discussable.” will leave college with views more like our own.” Rorty These were not comments made at Marxist Leninist noted further that students would be fortunate to find University or by the Red Guard. Nor was this the ranting themselves under the control “of people like me, and to of a deranged atheist who opposed the Commandment

salvo spring 08 79 to “honor your father and mother.” These views were Stanton Evans’s biography of Senator McCarthy, views those of a greatly respected senior professor who not only that did not fit the prevailing orthodoxy weren’t enter- influenced his colleagues but, to a degree, embodied their tained. Pounded into students instead was the notion that sentiments. America engaged in “totalitarian practices” not unlike the At one point in the history of the university, “educate” Soviet enemy we decried. was a reflexive verb. You educated yourself through expo- Class session after class session was devoted to the sure to great books, scientific analysis, and logical exegesis. drumbeat of criticism. I asked my daughter if she had read In the Rorty age, students do not have this privilege. Now anything about Gus Hall and the American Communist Party, if she had ever heard of I. F. Stone, or if any class time was devoted to the Venona tapes. She looked at me perplexed. There was don’t mind having my daughter only one theme in that course: The exposed to the jejune interpretation US government was wrong. There I wasn’t any justification for harass- of Navasky apologists. What I do mind ing communists, and Edward R. Murrow and Victor Navasky were is the lack of balance—the unwilling- the real heroes of the period. Needless to say, the historical ness to consider another point of view. story of that time is much more complex than this professor let on. McCarthy was over the top, sure, but communists of the Alger Hiss they are obliged to be browbeaten into submission, mere variety did insinuate themselves into key positions in the clay in the hands of ambitious professors who are bent State Department. Not every communist in the U.S. was a upon shaping students’ beliefs. threat to national security, but many were, and some gave Unfortunately, most parents who pay the tuition do military secrets to the Soviet Union. not have the foggiest idea of what it is they are indirectly Looking back, it is not so easy to discern heroes and promoting. What they see with rose-colored glasses are villains—unless, of course, the instructor reflexively parrots their sons and daughters completing a chapter in their the standard left-wing version of events. Here is the rub. lives that will help them as they enter the workforce. They I don’t mind having my daughter exposed to the jejune rarely consider what the university experience means or interpretation of Navasky apologists. What I do mind is the extent to which their own bourgeois and religious the lack of balance—the unwillingness to consider another beliefs are being assaulted in our colleges and universities. point of view. Without knowing it, Professor Rorty has actually done When I suggested that she write her final paper on us a favor. He said openly what many professors think and the role of anti-communist liberals such as Sidney Hook, what many students experience. Lamentably, parents have Irving Kristol, Stephen Spender, and Midge Decter, among not yet made the connection. But that day may be coming. others, my daughter said, “My instructor doesn’t admire When it does, the university will have a hard time defend- these people, and I don’t want to jeopardize a good grade ing itself. by writing about them.” So much for open discussion. Let me offer a personal illustration. In order to ful- Such bias is not atypical, unfortunately. Courses in fill a requirement for a major in history at Northwestern the soft disciplines have largely become propagandistic University, my daughter took a course called “The Cold exercises, as instructors have increasingly arrogated to War at Home.” As one might imagine, left-wing views themselves the role of moral arbiter. Invariably, the United predominated. The students read Ellen Shrecker rather States is wrong; our historical role in the Cold War was than Ronald Radosh; Joseph McCarthy was transmogrified malevolent; and our civil liberties are still being put at risk into Adolf Hitler; and victimology stood as the overarching by demagogic politicians. theme of the course. I can only wonder what historical scholarship will look Despite the recent scholarship on the period, such as like in a generation, once my daughter’s brainwashed Alan Weinstein’s well-researched book on Alger Hiss or cohorts enter the ranks of the professoriate.

80 salvo issue 5 Subscribe Today to Our New Monthly Magazine! r Neocosm: Turning the Old World Upside Down

Nothing in Life Makes Sense Apart from Evolution!

This Weekʼs Lineup

•Business The Motown Beat: How the Chrysler Lost Its Fins and Why the Edsel Went Extinct Sunday 9/8c

•Sports •The Arts •Science Now Featured at American Versus Planet Hominids and The Fish Inside You theevolutionchannel.com Canadian Football: Hollywood Friday 9/8c As You Type It: Which Will Survive? Wednesday 9/8c A live webcam monitors Monday 8/7c •Sex 1,000 monkeys typing on Men Are from the Atlantic, interconnected PCs, all •Music monitored for the random Gangsta Rap: Women Are from the •Social History appearances of words, Prisonʼs Progress: Mutation or Survivability Pacific phrases, and soliloquies from The Evolution of the Cell Enhancement? Saturday 8/7c the plays of the Bard! Tuesday 10/9c Thursday 10/9c Goebbels University Propaganda. Indoctrination. Popsicle Sticks.

Now Providing MANDATORY Diversity Facilitation Training

t Goebbels, we know that you will probably come to college with your own independent thoughts Aand ideas. But we also know that these thoughts and ideas are most likely rooted in ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice. That’s why we now require all of our prospective students to undergo diversity facilitation training before we welcome them onto our campus. During the 37 training sessions, you will be systematicaly programmed to believe that: 1. You are a racist. 2. You are a homophobe. 3. You are a sexist. 4. You are a classist. And we hope you like crafts. To help you start thinking correctly, session leaders will force you to make homemade pencil holders and paperweights that are not only handy in the dorm room, but that also convey a pro-diversity message that highlights your own nescience. You bring your willingness to groupthink, and we’ll bring the glitter and pipe cleaners.

he diversity facilitation training really set the stage for my freshman year at Goebbels. If they hadn’t made me attend, I might have accidentally mistaken Tmyself for a decent person. Plus, I made this really cool pencil holder out of “ popsicle sticks with a picture of me on it next to a homosexual. See? That’s me and that’s the gay guy. We’re both smiling.” Trevor Thorpe, homophobe

Goebbels University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Ministry of Propaganda to award Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts, Master of Science, Master of Divinity, and Doctor of Philosophy degrees.