George Will Storms The Ivory Towers

New York Post Online Edition: postopinion

"THE entitlement mentality produces petulant insistence on an ever-higher ratio of rights to responsibilities. Unsurprisingly, this mentality flourishes on campuses, where tenured faculty and privileged students live entitled lives supported by the taxes and generosity of others. The mentality was on vivid display in the Supreme Court last Tuesday when an association of 36 law schools and faculties asserted an audacious entitlement.

Many schools bar military recruiters because the schools oppose the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prevents openly gay people from serving in the military. The schools asked the court to declare unconstitutional, as a violation of the First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and association, the law that denies federal funds to any school that denies military recruiters the same access to students that any other employer enjoys.

...last week Chief Justice John Roberts said that "nobody" infers an academic institution's support for the views and policies of every employer allowed to recruit on campus. And as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor noted, schools are free to communicate their moral and political stances constantly. But the court has held that "students may not be regarded as closed-circuit recipients of only that which the [school] chooses to communicate."

During oral arguments, the schools had many occasions to wince. On their theory that any conduct can be imbued with "communicative force," Justice Antonin Scalia wondered if the schools might also justify banning military recruiters during a war the faculty disapproved, because allowing the recruiters would be tantamount to the schools endorsing the war.
Or because the professors object to the military barring women from combat, or using land mines. The possibilities are as numerous as the professors' reasons for interposing their moral sensibilities between Congress and its power to "raise and support armies."

As George goes on to say, the self-marginalization of professors has been an ongoing affair that began in the 60's. As someone who vividly remembers the the decade that begat flower power, it is easy to understand why these rock-star, greenpeace wannabes developed into the flagrant assholes they are today. The ivory towers became a haven from the lower caste's propensity to play with dangerous toys, and it was soon apparent that no self respecting member of the intelligentsia would be caught dead associating with the riff raff OR their dirty little schemes.