https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/08/the_diversity_furies_overrun_another_college.html
Kenyon College, a small liberal arts college in Ohio, is my alma mater (and that of AT editor Thomas Lifson). Both of us highly valued the educational experience we received there, particularly as political science majors in a department full of outstanding professors who valued teaching over other pursuits. Many of the faculty in the department were trained by Leo Strauss at the University of Chicago and highly skilled at the Socratic method of class discussion.
All colleges have changed since my time as an undergraduate, but Kenyon for many years retained many of its unique charms – a campus acknowledged as one of the most beautiful in the world, a high level of collegiality among pretty much all members of the campus community, an ethos that would not allow disruptions of speakers or threats to outside speakers, and a tolerance of people who might think differently about something. The intangible aspects of those charms seem to have disappeared in the last year.
Recent graduate Adam Rubenstein described for the Weekly Standard the brouhaha created when a liberal drama professor sent out an advance copy of her new play about illegal aliens working on a farm, planned for a premiere on campus. The professor was soon blasted by the “Latinx” community and others in solidarity with this “marginalized” group. One might have thought the professor had committed war crimes, given the ugliness of the response, but after all, how dare a white woman try to write about a minority community? The author withdrew the play, and it was never performed on campus.
With a new campaign underway to raise $300 million for the college, Kenyon needed to prevent the news of what had happened from getting out to alumni in an unfiltered fashion, potentially doing damage to the college’s reputation. The college’s Alumni Bulletin decided to address issues raised by the play in a summer issue with essays by faculty, students, and alumni. I was asked to be one of the writers, and as it turned out, I was the only one of the eight authors who seemed uncomfortable with the new obsession at the college, thoroughly endorsed by the administration in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (or, in reality, identity politics and white privilege). The essays were reviewed and edited by the Alumni Bulletin’s staff. At least mine was significantly edited and shortened. The essays can be read here (mine was the seventh of the eight in the link).
