The Ivy League needs a new den mother. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the universities – Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago – are challenging antiterrorism language that the Ford and Rockefeller foundations recently added to their standard grant agreements” (Colleges object to new wording in Ford grants, May 4, 2004, p. B1).
During the 1960s, America’s budding socialists, anarchists, communists and Christian-haters stormed college presidents’ offices and occupied administration buildings, to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the Vietnam war, capitalism, religion and rules in general. Weak-kneed college presidents quickly succumbed and bolted for the door marked “retirement.”
The protesters never left the occupied offices. Academic standards collapsed. Grade inflation (competition is so evil) became the new norm. Fluff classes like sexual basket weaving and feminist studies grew from accredited electives designed to buy off the wackos to entire departments with tenured professors, outlandish recruitment and ever-increasing salaries for someone of the right skin color and political-social views. History was rewritten to meet the new “standards” of political correctness, which held that only those the left deemed “worthy” would have a voice. Conservatives, Christians, capitalists, and white men need not apply.
“Academic freedom” sheltered increasingly vile views from criticism. This only increased their intensity. Tenure was reserved for those who worshiped at the alter of political correctness, and sacrificed truth accordingly. It would be an insult to the scholars of the Middle Ages to say that American colleges and universities entered a new “dark ages.”
On Sept. 11, the forces of darkness sensed America’s growing weakness to defend the truth and they struck, murdering thousands of Americans without warning. Many of the murderers entered the nation on student visas. Academia railed against new alien student reporting and registration requirements, complaining it hurt their bottom line, as the government struggled to assess the threat and prevent another 9-11.
College professors immediately spoke out. Here is a sampling from a WorldNetDaily article shortly after the attacks:
“Professor Elisabeth Weber of the University of California-Santa Barbara wrote, “My concern over the U.S. flags surrounding campus is that they endanger the free exchange that normally characterizes our campus.”
“Evergreen State College of Olympia, Wash., professor Larry Mosqueda wrote, “If we multiply by 800-1,000 times the amount of pain angst, and anger being currently felt by the American public, we might begin to understand how much the rest of the world feels as they are continually victimized [by the U.S.].
“University of Minnesota Professor Ezra Hyland blamed Americans directly for the attacks, claiming that “you can’t plant hatred and not expect to reap hatred.”
Now, two of the foundations that have been doling out millions of dollars annually to higher education have inserted clauses to deny funding for terrorism. The Ford Foundation would deny funds “if any of a university’s expenditures promoted ‘violence, terrorism, bigotry or the destruction of any state,’ no matter what the source of the funds. Rockefeller’s language states that a grantee shall not ‘directly or indirectly engage in, promote or support other organizations or individuals who engage in or promote terrorist activity.'”
The only states I can think of that the left would like to see destroyed are Israel and America. That these states should continue to exist the universities apparently find offensive. The Journal reported:
This past week, provosts at the nine schools co-signed letters to the foundations warning that the new conditions would “run up against the basic principle of protected speech on our campuses” and “create an unfortunate barrier to future cooperation … that will be detrimental to both sides.” The letters implicitly raise the prospect that the universities might cease applying for Ford and Rockefeller grants if the language isn’t altered.
Even the American Civil Liberties Union, which currently drinks at the Ford trough for $2.3 million annually, “said free speech isn’t at risk because Ford is a private donor rather than a government agency.”
Last year, the two foundations gave $50 million in grants to higher education. The Senate Finance Committee is currently looking at how money from American foundations and nonprofits is spent overseas. Let’s hope they look into how the Ivy League funnels its billions in endowment funds while they’re at it. Now that might be a real education.
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WND Staff