Social Club Press Roundup

To quote the great philosopher Clint Eastwood, as Dirty Harry, "a man’s got to know his limitations." The same may be said of a university. Its jurisdiction and authority are rightly bounded by the perimeters of its campus. The certitude of its moral and intellectual prowess does not give it infinite license to control the private lives or thoughts of its students, to manage the affairs of society at large, or to deliver its principles as if tablets from on high. The evangelical zeal of any university, its messianic compulsion to promote progress (as it and it alone would define it), is a sure sign that it misunderstands its core responsibilities: educating its students and demonstrating by word and example the need to respect the rights of others to self-determination, even when adjudged to be wrong. A university on a mission is a dangerous thing in a pluralistic society, a betrayal of the diverse values it purports to represent, and a sure way to alienate those it seeks to enlighten.

The list of examples Gup goes on to cite certainly makes one wonder, as one of my colleagues did with me this morning, whether some future writer will look back on these events and ask, "What were they thinking?" Seven Votes (Crimson) This is the blockbuster news story of the year by the Crimson. If correct, and it seems well sourced and no corrections have been added to the story in the two days since it appeared, then the Clark-Khurana committee did not reach nearly so extensive a consensus as the report of that committee suggests. (I do not refer to this as a "faculty committee," since many members were not faculty, and faculty who are not also administrators were in the minority.) The committee members certainly have my sympathy--it's a complicated issue about which it had to reach a conclusion under time pressure and with limited information. (In fact, very little factual information is in the report. I wonder how carefully the policies of other colleges were studied. There are no thanks to people at Bowdoin or Yale who were consulted, no evidence of road trips, and very little if any numerical data.) From the time I--respectfully and in good faith--withdrew my motion, I have said nothing about the committee or its work, until now. The stunning revelation is the one in the title--that apparently the recommendation for a total ban came out of a single up-or-down vote (described as a straw vote) among ten alternatives. The Crimson reports that seven of the 27 committee members voted in favor of the option that was then reported to be the committee's recommendation. Even middle school students learn not to conduct a vote that way when choosing a team captain--the results are meaningless. And here the vote is being used to radically restructure undergraduate life forever. This is the culmination of a consultative process that was suppose