Sowell on leftist academics’ intolerance

Thomas Sowell begins his column today with an appropriate wish for Berkeley:

The Berkeley city council has made national news by telling Marine Corps recruiters that they are unwelcome in that bastion of the academic left.

It is a shame that Berkeley is not on some island in the South Pacific, because then they could be given their independence and left to defend themselves.

As it is, members of our armed forces who put their lives on the line to defend America are also defending people like too many in Berkeley for whom the very word America, and the American flag, bring only sneers. …

Yes, America and the American flag bring sneers to many in Berkeley.

Like Sowell and many of you, I often wish those in Berkeley dissatisfied with America would settle elsewhere.

I deeply resent people in this country who choose to live under the protection of our military and then denigrate it at every opportunity.

We’ve gotten to a point in America where prostitutes and strippers are welcome on many college campuses but our military isn’t.

Sowell reminds us:

All across the country, there are professors who push for keeping military recruiters off campus and for banning ROTC. Apparently if they don't like the military, then other people -- such as students -- should not be allowed to make up their own minds whether they want to join or not.

Liberals in general and academics in particular, like to boast of their open-mindedness and acceptance of non-conformity. But they mean not conforming to the norms of society at large.

They have little or no tolerance to those who do not conform to the norms of academic political correctness. Nowhere else in America is free speech so restricted as on academic campuses with speech codes. …

Sowell’s entire column is here.

Contempt for our military. Contempt for free speech, other than that with which they agree.

For decades the intolerance of America's academic left has been a very serious and growing problem. But it's been made worse in recent years because of the new power given leftists on campuses by the enormous wealth accumulating in many college and univsesity endowments.