Author: Paul Craig Roberts (archive)
Publication: Townhall.com
Date: October 31, 2001
URL: http://www.townhall.com/columnists/paulcraigroberts/pcr20011031.shtml
For many Americans, the events of
Sept. 11 have breathed new life into patriotism, but many in academia and
the media remain hostile to America. The Foundation for Individual Rights
in Education (www.thefire.org) has intervened in recent instances where
academic administrators intentionally stifled patriotic expression and
retaliated against those who voiced support for our country.
At Central Michigan University,
students were ordered by university administrators to remove patriotic
posters and the American flag from their dormitory. The students were told
that these items were "offensive."
Duke University in North Carolina
shut down Professor Gary Hull's webpage because he posted an article that
called for a strong military response to the terrorist attack
At Pennsylvania State University,
a professor was reprimanded by the vice provost for academic affairs for
advocating military action as a response to the terrorist attacks. The
professor was told that his comments were "insensitive and perhaps even
intimidating," grounds for dismissal.
At Holy Cross in Massachusetts the
chairman of the sociology department forced a secretary to remove the American
flag that she had placed in memory of her friend Todd Beamer. Beamer was
one of the passengers who challenged the terrorists on hijacked United
flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania.
At Lehigh University, the vice provost
of student affairs ordered the American flag to be removed from the school
bus.
At Johns Hopkins University, Professor
Charles Fairbanks voiced his support at a public forum for an aggressive
campaign against states that harbor terrorists. (All such states are Muslim
with the exception of Cuba and North Korea.) He was accused of assisting
people to commit hate crimes (against Muslims) and removed as director
of the Central Asia Institute.
At the University of Massachusetts
(one of the leading academic zoos), students were granted a permit to protest
the war against terrorism, but students who wanted to rally in support
of U.S. policy were denied a permit.
At San Diego State University, an
Arabic-speaking Ethiopian student overheard three Arab students expressing
their delight in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The
Ethiopian admonished the Arabs and was put on warning by university administrators
for "threatening and abusive behavior." The Arabs were happy, he said.
"I told them they should be ashamed." (Of four material witnesses arrested
in San Diego in connection with the terrorist attacks, one is a San Diego
State University student.)
At Florida Gulf Coast University,
the dean of library services ordered the library's employees to remove
stickers reading, "Proud to be an American," from their workspace on the
grounds that such expressions were offensive to foreign students.
At the University of Missouri, the
director of the university's TV station, KOMU, instructed employees not
to wear red, white and blue ribbons in memory for those Americans killed
in the Sept. 11 attacks.
It is permissible to burn the American
flag on university campuses. But don't try waving one.
America-haters have the upper hand
on many campuses. They are ever so sensitive to the feelings of Middle
Eastern Muslims and completely insensitive to the feelings of patriotic
Americans.
Multiculturalists, feminists and
a variety of other left-wing bigots have destroyed scholarship and turned
education into a campaign against Western civilization. They seduce the
minds of the young and fill them with shame of their country. These home-grown
terrorists in academic garb are a more dangerous enemy than the Taliban
and Bin Laden.
While the U.S. conducts a war against
terrorists, our own universities are conducting a terror war against the
patriots on their campuses.
The Heritage Foundation is rightly
calling for an end to World Bank and IMF subsidies to states that harbor
terrorist organizations. We must also end taxpayer and donor subsidies
to politically correct universities, which are Fifth Columns within our
country.
