Effete University Presidents Overdose on Political Correctness

 

"This should be the easiest question possible" Representative Elise Stefanik said, and she was right.

Liz Magill

But the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and MIT could not answer it.

It's not original to wonder, "Under what specific context would calling for genocide be okay at Harvard, Penn or MIT?"

I've always wondered just what a university president does, beyond going hat in hand to the waiting rooms of billionaires, while wearing an expensive suit, and asking for a million dollar donation.

Gordon Gee, a sort of gadfly of university presidents, having got himself million dollar gigs at Brown, Vanderbilt, Ohio State, and West Virginia, once said his job was to be sure the official campus bird is the crane, as in one of those things you need to build large buildings. And when someone asked if he was going to fire the athletic director for having said something particularly politically incorrect, Gee responded, "I'm just hoping the athletic director doesn't fire me. We all know where the power is here."

President of Harvard, Charles Eliot, in the 1920's  said that the mixing of the races was an anathema and we should forbid immigration to keep the blood lines of America pure.

But, Liz Magill, a Constitutional scholar could not bring herself to say, "Freedom of Speech is not an absolute right. As Oliver Wendel Holmes said, 'You cannot falsely shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theater.  And you cannot advocate by speech for the violent overthrow of the United States government. And, it is clear, nobody on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania should be allowed to call for a new Holocaust or genocide."

Once, at a very fancy cocktail outside Washington, DC an Arnold and Porter lawyer, in his very expensive suit and I got to talking about the ouster of Larry Summers as president of Harvard after he said that women did not seem to gravitate toward math and science, thus violating the politically correct dogma that women can do anything as well as men, and in high heels, while dancing backwards. So he was gone. Faculty voted him out as if he had reaffirmed Harvard's support for eugenics.

"A damn shame," the Arnold and Porter lawyer told me. "He had such a perfect blend of skill sets for the job of being Harvard's president."

"And what could those skill sets possibly be?" I asked. "Being Harvard's president has got to be one of the easiest jobs in the world: You just sit back, keep your mouth shut and watch the donations flow in."

So, Liz Magill has lost her sinecure and, if there is any sense left at Harvard, Claudine Gay should lose hers. I didn't hear what the MIT president said.

It's interesting how Ivy League colleges have been clamoring to put women, particularly women of color, in their presidential offices. Maybe now, they'll be looking to place John Fetterman clones, big guys who talk straight and don't ever try to parse and adjust their words, but hit you between the eyes with, "Call for genocide on campus? We'll gen your backside right off campus."