Sigh! Back to the “Student Protests” Everything Old Is New Again…

Thomas Sowell, a man of great intellectual insight recently wrote of a modern day college student takeover of a university, in this case Pennsylvania’s  Swarthmore College, where students recently demanded,  well all sorts of things.

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20130526/OPINION/305260002/Don-t-let-barbarians-take-over-colleges?nclick_check=1

Let’s see if I can categorize the, I am tempted to call them “nut-jobs,” but it is more complicated than that: The protesting students have a vastly exaggerated impression that the world gives a damn about what they think. In some ways they are like the old-time Symbionese Liberation Army of the mid-70s, who believed they were the Point Men leading a massive uprising that would overthrow the national political establishment.

It was literally a mouse with rape on its mind, approaching an elephant.  There is something devoutly annoying about people who have learned little, traveled less, and theorize about belonging to People For a Perfect World.

Anyway, the Swarthmore students, were led by something called the Mountain Justice movement – Google them – who oppose not just open mine coal extraction, but natural gas alternatives, and, oh yes, lest I forget, the support of indigenous people. The Swarthmore students had not just that agenda (the world is not sufficiently large to hold their “ideas”), but more gay and lesbian professors, academic support for people of color who are not performing sufficiently well to graduate in four years, disinvestment in fossil fuel portfolios, rape counseling, more scholarships for illegal immigrants…

Have I forgotten anything?

Probably.

Aside from the lunacy of listening to people who have lived their entire lives in familial socialism on Daddy’s dime, have produced absolutely nothing of value to anyone, and will get their degrees in Women’s Studies and live in their parents’ basements, there is not much reason to even entertain thinking about them and their various “causes”, except that I once witnessed the proper way to handle “student protests.”

I was in the dining room of the University of Notre Dame in 1969, having lunch with Father Hessburgh — president of Notre Dame, when there a “student riot” or what was a Notre Dame version.

(I was there with Cdr. “Pete” Bucher, Commanding Officer of the USS Pueblo, who had delivered the first speech after his return from capture, imprisonment and torture by the North Koreans. Pete had spoken to the Chicago chapter of the Notre Dame Alumni Association, and delivered a speech I had written for him. I traveled with him to many places thereafter as his speechwriter and bodyguard, but the dining room of Notre Dame University was the first stop.)

We were on a slightly raised Dias in the dining room when a student approached and announced that the students had a set of ‘demands.”

Father Hessburgh put down his fork and said, “Young man, as you can see, I am having lunch with guests. Go away, and take your “demands” to my office.”

The student said (sheepishly), “Thank you, Father. I will do so.”

And the student withdrew.

This was at a time of massive campus riots and sit-ins that occupied college president’s offices. The episode demonstrated “respect” (for the student, for the president, and for the institution) — and impressed the hell out of this non-religious person. Notre Dame, like Swarthmore, has more applicants than spots on their roster, and can well afford to replace those who bring chaos to the campus.

However, it takes a brand of leadership that is in short supply in academic circles.