NOT QUITE THAT NOBLE:

My Brush with the Campus Thought Police: Why is it conservatives are inviting a liberal Democratic feminist to speak on campus, and Democrats aren't? A report from two campuses. (Tammy Bruce, 12/02/03, Front Page)

One of the many benefits of my work is that I get to go speak directly to the Stepford Undergraduates who arrive at college as eager and excited freshman and walk out cynical, brainwashed leftists. They embrace the multiculturalism, moral relativism and hatred of America that their Marxist and Socialist professors have instilled in them for years.
 
As a Democrat and a feminist, you would think it would be the women’s groups, or the feminist club, or the College Democrats that would be inviting me to speak. But of course not.
 
No, the young people supposedly keeping the flame for freedom of expression, new ideas, and obsessed with “diversity” are far too busy clamping down on the people who exhibit that pesky intellectual freedom let alone be expected to actually bring one of “them” (i.e., someone who dares to challenge them) to campus.
 
I should not have been surprised, but in my effort to be able to be heard on campuses it became the conservative wing of Americans politics that exhibited a true commitment to intellectual diversity and freedom of expression. The College Republicans and the Young America’s Foundation, America’s largest campus outreach program for the conservative movement, have been the sponsors of my most recent speaking engagements—at Roger Williams College and at Mt Holyoke.
 
The bright lights out there on our campuses are indeed the conservative students who are truly committed to principles and values. Because of this, they are willing to face the risk, punishment, name-calling, and even threats to their personal safety because they dare to be different. They dare to stand up for what is right. They dare to be College Republicans.

Of course, Ms Bruce is being more than a tad disingenuous, as her politics are fairly conservative, even if putatively Democratic, and young people enjoy nothing more than being provocative, especially conservatives, who have no ethos of hypersensitivity to the political correctness of others. Had a friend at Colgate who used to wear orange on St. Patrick's day--drove folks nuts, but it was damned amusing.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 2, 2003 8:07 AM