April 29, 2014
ROGER KIMBALL: “Daniela Hernandez: who’s that? Why that’s the ever-so-sensitive junior at Dartmouth who shut down a charity event, intended to benefit cardiac patients, because she found the theme of the event—’Phiesta,’ i.e. ‘Fiesta’—offensive.” Even more offensive is that Dartmouth’s lame, PC administration went along. So, you’re supposed to embrace other cultures, but you can’t use their words because that might be racist or something? I guess the only way to prevent that is to segregate schools by race, ethnicity, and gender so that no one is offended. Progressivism: Back to the future!
Roger observes: “There has been a lot of talk recently about the ‘higher education bubble,’ and no wonder. By reneging on their obligation to foster independence and free inquiry, those privileged bastions have utterly forfeited the moral authority our society invested in them. The accumulation of repulsive and cowardly episodes like this one at Dartmouth will sooner or later—probably sooner—erode pubic trust to the point that the entire higher educational establishment will implode.” Why spend six-figure sums to subject your kids to this sort of absurdity?