In Detroit Friday, Indiana Pacers’ Ron Artest ran into the bleachers, punching and shoving several fans after he was hit with a cup of beer that further incited a riot between players and fans that had already reaching a boiling point.
Less than 24 hours later, emotions in a heated rivalry game between Clemson and South Carolina ran high and resulted in a 10-minute, bench-clearing brawl in the fourth quarter.
The College of Arts and Sciences is putting together a proposal to give students the opportunity to partake in a program on Western Civilization. This is welcome news indeed. The study of Western Civilization is history making the case for liberty.
CHAPEL HILL – What a great day, Monday, to be in Chapel Hill!
There was a nice fall crisp in the air, people were still gloating about a possible bowl game, and the radicals on campus were pretending to be me. Well, they were at least passing themselves off as representatives from my office.
RALEIGH — A monthly column of mine is under fire by a handful of loud leftists at the University of Chapel Hill. The bunch, which includes a few professors (a very few, let it be said), are arguing that my column is acceptable grounds upon which the university’s College of Arts and Sciences must desist in their efforts to propose a program in Western Civilization that would win an outside grant worth several million dollars.
This talk has had a long gestation period – 24 years to be precise. In the fall of 1980, I was hired by a small, nonselective college to teach a number of courses – Business Law, Principles of Economics, and an upper-level course in Political Economy. An experience in the latter class one fall day was, as Senator Kerry would say, “seared” into my memory. I had asked the students to read a few pages from Hayek’s The Mirage of Social Justice, expecting that they would do the reading and come to class prepared for some discussion.
Sadly, I found out that the students a) had not bothered to read the assignment, or b) didn’t understand grasp anything from it and c) were not the least bit bothered by their inability to answer any of the questions I posed. After much embarrassing silence, one young fellow put up his hand, and I eagerly called on him. He said, “Couldn’t you, like, just tell us the main point?”
RALEIGH — The study of Western Civilization used to be a rite of passage for the university-educated. Now it is an afterthought at best, consigned to the shadows of the curriculum as universities pursue trendy multiculturalism. And the reaction to a proposal to bring Western Civ back shows just how feared the liberating study is by the campus radicals.
UNC-Chapel Hill leftists list articles by George Leef and our Course of the Month honorees as proof that UNC-CH should not accept a grant from the Pope Foundation to fund the study of Western Civilization at the flagship institution (which they termed “Accept[ing] $12 Million from Racist, Sexist, Classist, Homophobic Donors”).
Seeking to expand UNC-Chapel Hill’s worldwide reputation as the leading public university in America, a group of faculty members have proposed a new minor that they say would greatly enhance cultural awareness – Yankee/ette Studies.
Last spring, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill established a new minor in “Latina/o Studies.” A recent announcement from UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences proclaims that “The establishment of the new program, beginning this semester, follows recognition of the increasing importance and influence of the rapidly growing number of people in North Carolina and the region who came – or whose ancestors came – from countries in Latin America….”
An e-mail sent to faculty at North Carolina State warned against the Pope Center’s upcoming conference on academic freedom, because speaker David Horowitz’s “Academic Bill of Rights” contains “carefully chosen language” that “does not fully expose the agenda behind it.” Fortunately for N.C. State, the professor behind the e-mail did know “the real agenda — imposing political litmus tests on course content.” Ye cats!
