This is an institution of higher learning?
The New School, a private university in New York City, run by President Bob Kerry, former Democrat senator from Nebraska, recently hosted John McCain as 2006 commencement speaker, much to the vocal dismay, nay, protest, of many in the audience.
At least that’s what Beth Fouhy’s May 19, 2006, Associated Press (AP) report described.
My initial visceral reaction was one of disbelief and disgust. How could a so-called university, an educational institution of purported higher learning, slam a commencement speaker because he didn’t represent the thinking and views of the university, as protesters interpreted them? I thought universities were the bastions of free thought.
That tells me one thing. Some (most?) in this university couldn’t stomach the thought of hearing a potentially different point of view. So much for their fortitude. I thought the educative process involved intellectual tension, contrast, and analysis. If one never desires or hears any message or information different from existing knowledge and beliefs, can growth and maturation occur? I’d say that the result is academic stagnancy, if not decay.
Did a majority of students hold this view? The faculty? Presumably, the school leaders didn’t share this position or I doubt that university president Bob Kerry could have or would have extended the invitation. [Ms. Fouhy’s article noted that 1,200 students and faculty signed a petition calling for Kerry to withdraw the McCain invite.]
What is interestingly striking is the University’s description of itself. (See http://www.newschool.edu). It states: that [T]he New School is a legendary, progressive (my emphasis) university comprising eight schools bound by a common, unusual intent: to prepare and inspire its 9,300 undergraduate and graduate students to bring actual, positive change (again, my emphasis) to the world.
If disinterest or rejection of differing views is progressive, I’ll gladly sign up to be a traglodyte for the remainder of my years on this planet.
It’s hard to discuss and analyze this event without failing prey to attributes similar to the protesters. With no intent to call names, another word that pops to mind about this behavior and attitude is bigotry. Forget the racial component for a moment. Isn’t a bigot someone who holds certain views of the world and is unalterably opposed to changing them or fails to respect others for holding variations thereof? If so, what would one call those members at the commencement exercise who exercised their First Amendment right to free speech?
While these people have every entitlement to express themselves, a commodity called civility would probably suggest a different approach. Rather than rudely chanting or turning backs to the speaker, some other more admirable, intelligent method of dissent could have been chosen.
Hearing that such reaction was given to a “maverick” Republican Senator informs me of the high degree of intellectual intolerance evident at this “progressive” (so-called liberal?) institution. With behavior like this, is it any wonder that our current partisan politics have been so poisoned? Of course, some may say that our current environment models and perpetuates such boorish activity. Without engaging in a chicken-or-egg dialectic, the bottom line remains that too few people are open to too few (new) ideas. If our future leaders are more inclined towards this protocol, heaven help us.
It calls itself the “New” School. Yet its students’ and faculty’s small-minded ideas and diminished drive for open academic inquiry and analysis are hardly emblematic of new thinking, or any real thinking at all.
It’s purely same-old, same-old. It’s definitely “old” school.
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Fred W. Apelquist, III, M. Ed.
Approximately 585 words.
© May 21, 2006