That today’s caviling radicals easily intimidate college administrators is undeniable. Some may admire these leaders, but nobody fears them. That university presidents and their underlings, all of whom are responsible for championing free and open intellectual life, may be brilliant, but with few exceptions they are all talk-clever wimps. The mere threat of “outrage” from thin-skinned campus Muslims or pagan environmentalists, let alone a nasty face-to-face shouting match with angered anorexic militant feminists, is sufficient to achieve immediate unconditional surrender. It is no wonder that the PC menace seems unstoppable.
Overcoming timidity is extraordinarily difficult. Modern science has not yet progressed to the point where, as in the Wizard of Oz, the faint-hearted lion can have an organ transplant. Adding spines for the spineless may be centuries away. Similarly, concocting new rules and regulations, empowering oversight committees, even state
Get access to this article, plus the entire archive, by subscribing.