You Can Have All the Academic Freedom You Like---So Long As You're A Bolshevik Idiot

More on Ward Churchill:

OF COURSE, THE IDEAL OF THE UNIVERSITY, cloaked in the magic armor of academic freedom, engendering a free and open search for truth is, at least outside of the physical sciences, a myth. Core curricula have been sacrificed on the altar of the anti-intellectual deity of political correctness, and the promise of a free and open exchange of ideas is too often a hollow one -- especially if you are a political conservative. Indeed, in America, the exchange of ideas is demonstrably more free and open outside of universities than in them. Nonetheless, university professors and administrators continue to find success in peddling the charms of "academic freedom" to the American public.

Are we forever condemned to suffering a system of higher education with an increasingly left-wing, anti-American, and indeed anti-intellectual bent, perpetuated by a culture of academe where to be critical of Western values (except for some strains such as Marxism), and particularly American values, is the key to acceptance and the key to be regarded as intelligent? If Americans continue to buy in to the sanctity of "academic freedom" and to deny themselves any role in shaping university standards and policies, the answer is "yes." Can serious efforts by concerned citizens, alumni, and governments (in the case of state schools) curb some academic excesses? That is yet to be seen.

I graduated from a federal service academy. There was more academic freedom in a military university than there has ever been at the politically-correct civilian versions. I should know---I took an "A" in an Airpower History course writing a final thesis about how General Curtis LeMay ought to have been tried as a war criminal for indiscriminate firebombing.

Sure, I was wrong, but my much-wiser instructor aced me anyway, despite vehemently disagreeing with me. THAT's academic freedom.