Having a daughter preparing for her freshman year at UGA surely heightens my interest in trends on campus, but I have worried for many years about the leftist turn prestigious American universities took long ago. It goes beyond a socialist tilt in the population of history professors. Too many of our universities churn out left-leaning graduates with an affinity to socialism and hostility to our own capitalist system.
Countless university administrators have trampled student rights by restricting campus free speech to specific and confined zones, and have created extra-constitutional rights such as the right to not be offended.
Some universities paradoxically protect student and faculty tender sensibilities against offense by banning selected words and phrases that might hurt feelings, never mind the apparently outdated expectation that academic pursuits surely begin with unfettered free thought.
There are far too many reports of invited speakers at universities being shouted down by students impolitely rejecting their conservative views, with nary a nudge by faculty or administrators to encourage the tolerance of respectfully listening to differing views.
Even nationally prominent conservative commentator George Will was disinvited to speak at Scripps College in California; apparently they could not tolerate a differing opinion he wrote in a column about the rush to judgment on a specific case of campus date rape.
For a country that proudly proclaims tolerance and diversity, American universities are compiling an embarrassing record of requiring speakers to toe their political line.
Even here in the deep south of Georgia where conservative views abound, I wonder whether the university system pledges allegiance to “diversity” while intolerantly squeezing the few remaining conservative viewpoints out of professorial ranks and punishing students for any demonstrable evidence of conservative attitudes? Are there any schools left, even here, that achieve a real balance in political views?
I hope things are different at UGA, and I recently had occasion to wonder about Valdosta State University where last week three students were publicly demonstrating their ire against racism by trampling an American flag. Well, of course, what better way to call attention to your favorite gripe than to insult the country that provides you a safe life and opportunity envied by the world while protecting your right to be stupid?
That is where Michelle Manhart, an Air Force veteran, came in. She took the flag from the aggrieved protestors, thereby preventing any further desecration. Local police held her for refusing to return their property. Her rescue of the flag was caught on video, thereby prompting the indignant university to issue a criminal trespass warning to keep her off campus, proudly declaring protection of their student protestors’ constitutional rights of free speech.
I hope Valdosta State has a better record than universities in general protecting free speech, but in this case I would stand with Michelle.
The university is technically correct about student rights, of course, but pardon my suspicion this flag-abuse case provides Valdosta State a rather convenient alignment between their constitutional right argument and the liberal comfort zone that dominates academia. It is easy to support protestors when you agree with them.
As I would have guessed, the good people of Valdosta don’t cotton to flag-stomping, and they turned out in force to protest the protestors. God bless America. Last Friday’s expected anti-protestor crowd was expected to be in the thousands, so to avoid trouble Valdosta State University students and faculty had the day off.
Meanwhile, Michelle Manhart is the darling of the counter-movement, though critics note she once posed for Playboy, as if that matters. All it tells me is that in addition to patriotic verve and a strong heart, she must have nice curves.
Since this incident was at an institution of higher learning, let’s pause for a deeper thought. I would guess if you asked Michelle or any of her fellow counter-protestors whether they would favor a constitutional amendment prohibiting burning or otherwise desecrating our flag, many would be all for it.
But I think that would be a mistake, even though mistreating our flag makes me furious. To keep the freedom for each of us to choose how we treat the flag, I would rather pay the price of enduring the occasional idiot inflicting disrespect on the flag than have our government looking for, investigating and punishing that same activity.
Besides, there are often bold people like Michelle Manhart willing to step in. Even though a moron with no appreciation for our country’s blessings has a right to abuse our flag, and even though laws won’t allow you or me to put lumps on their head, I would love to join Michelle dodging the law to separate the morons from their flag and maybe even apply some lumps where they are richly deserved despite the consequences.
If the lumps are big enough, the idiots might be prompted to think beyond their rights to recognize they have responsibilities. Too bad they didn’t learn that at home, worse that they didn’t learn it in their university classrooms.
[Terry Garlock of Peachtree City occasionally contributes a column to The Citizen. His email is terry@garlock1.com.]
