MATTERA: Abuse in academia?

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By Jason Mattera

OP-ED:

Did you hear the one about a college student threatened with expulsion for handing out copies of The Communist Manifesto? Ha! Of course you didn't. When was the last time a campus official violated his fealty to leftist orthodoxy?

Now if you were told that the actual pamphlets inflicting rage at this institution happened to be Christian literature, not works by Marx, then the scenario of expulsion seems more likely, doesn't it? Unfortunately for Ryan Dozier, a 20-year-old student at Yuba College in California, our thought experiment is his reality.

Yuba's president, Paul V. Mendoza, issued him an ultimatum: Discontinue handing out gospel booklets or face disciplinary action. The controversy began when Ryan's school required that students obtain a permit to participate in the "free speech zone." The permit, if granted, restricts evangelistic activity on campus - religious or ideological - to an hour each Tuesday and Thursday, and even authorizes the location where students are allowed to exhibit "free speech." It happens to be the school theater, in this case.

Ryan, armed with First Amendment's speech and religious exercise clauses, decided he was going to distribute gospel booklets on his own terms, and for that he received this unseemly threat from the college president: "I will, at this point, issue you a written warning to not violate the Student Code of Conduct ... Should you violate my directive, you will face further discipline up to and including expulsion from the college." Ryan's saga is one that has defined schools these days: total obeisance to political correctness.

In that vein, Young America's Foundation once again compiled the "best of the worst" academic abuses for 2008. These stories are usually not reported in the "drive-by" media, no doubt to shield school officials from explaining their radical curricula. The Yuba incident tops the list, although it had plenty of competition, as you'll see.

Transgendered Activists In, Pro-life Speakers Out:

Administrators at the Minnesota, inexplicably censored the appearance of prominent pro-life speaker Star Parker.

In April, Vice President of Student Affairs Jane Canney, forbade the lecture, claiming they felt "uncomfortable" and "disturbed" by previous conservative speakers at the University.

Speakers that passed Ms. Canney's litmus test in 2008? Debra Davis, a transgendered activist who believes that God is a black lesbian.

Thanksgiving Tradition Deemed Racist:

For decades, kindergarten classes in the California have celebrated Thanksgiving by dressing up as Pilgrims and Indians and sharing a feast. Harmless, eh? Apparently not.

In a letter to her daughter's elementary school teacher, University of California-Riverside, fumed that such activities are "dehumanizing" and serve as a "racist stereotype." In fact, Ms. Raheja whined that the Thanksgiving costume party is comparable to parading children around as "slaves" and "Jews." The school district capitulated, and now the toddlers are prohibited from wearing "their hand-made bonnets, headdresses and fringed vests."

2008's Stolen Election:

Columbia officials claimed the referendum lost by 39 votes.

However, the University inexplicably closed the online poll at different times for different students and discarded more than 1,900 votes out of the 4,905 cast. To boot, the Ivy League campus showcased its "anti-fraud" measures, revealing they caught one person who purportedly voted 276 times! So much for secure, front-end identification control. In the end, 1,502 "valid" Nays trumped the 1,463 Ayes. Does anyone else smell some anti-military electioneering rats?

Leftist Factions Compete on Who is More Mulitcultural:

When eco-fanatics at Robert Birgeneau, labeled them just that, saying the environmental radicals were impeding the completion of a new athletic facility designed to attract "minority student athletes."

Puzzled that the chancellor played the race card on them, the tree dwellers argued that "three of the final four" protesters were "Latinos" and the very first hijacker was a "Native American." One of the Berkeley zealots, who goes by the name "Running Wolf," said that Mr. Birgenaeau attempted "to pit colored against colored." We'll spare you the rest. The other five examples on Young America's Foundation's report, "PC Campus: Academia's Top 10 Abuses of 2008," are accessible through www.yaf.org, if you can stomach any more illustrations on the unholy alliance between academia and the Left.

Jason Mattera is spokesman for Young America's Foundation.