Juxtaposed in the current news cycle, against the now-annual collegiate tradition of ban-the-commencement-speaker, is this video from Dan Joseph of MRC-TV ~
 

The reason these kids are so uninformed about world affairs and current events is that today’s colleges, once proud bastions of academic freedom, have gradually become unenlightened institutions of intolerance. These days students on most every U.S. campus are subject to an un-written thought-conformity code. The sad result is that, after four years of indoctrination, they’re actually “offended” by any contrary opinions. As evidence of the totalitarian atmosphere, especially at elite universities, here are a couple of this year’s “unacceptable” commencement speakers:
 
• International Monetary Director Christine Lagarde ~ IMF Protests Drive Away Smith College Graduation Speaker
• Condoleezza Rice ~ Pulls Out Of Rutgers Commencement Ceremony After Protests
• State Senator Michael Johnston (D-CO) ~ Harvard latest school moving to oust graduation speaker

Not only are the students on Joseph’s video living in a reality-free zone, they seem blissfully self-assured in their ignorance. Remember, this generation is a product of that unfortunate self-esteem-is-all-that-matters trend in education. Bret Stephens discussed this phenomenon in today’s WSJ decribing; “the dismaying inverse relationship between that (class of 2012’s) self-regard and its command of basic facts.”
 
That was from a 2012 Stephens column. In today’s, he continued ~

Well, Class of 2012, I did you a (small) injustice. At least the pretense of knowledgeability was important to you. For the Class of 2014, it seems that inviolable ignorance is the only true bliss.
 
It’s not just the burgeoning list of rescinded invitations to potentially offensive commencement speakers: Ayaan Hirsi Ali at Brandeis, Condi Rice at Rutgers, Christine Lagarde at Smith and Robert Birgeneau at Haverford.
 
In February, students at Dartmouth issued a list of 72 demands for “transformative justice.” Among them: “mandate sensitivity training”; “organize continuous external reviews of the College’s structural racism, classism, ableism, sexism and heterosexism”; and “create a policy banning the Indian mascot.” When the demands weren’t automatically met, the students seized an administration building […]
 
 
This is the bind you find yourselves in, Class of 2014: No society, not even one that cossets the young as much as ours does, can treat you as children forever. A central teaching of Genesis is that knowledge is purchased at the expense of innocence. A core teaching of the ancients is that personal dignity is obtained through habituation to virtue. And at least one basic teaching of true liberalism is that the essential right of free people is the right to offend, and an essential responsibility of free people is to learn how to cope with being offended.

Demanding not to be offended, do these graduates realize they’ve relinquished all consequential autonomous thought?

 
So long as our colleges and universities are more concerned with preventing diverse opinions, and prefer censorship over debate, today’s young people may be familiar with “Happy” – but they won’t know jack-s**t about the world around them.
 
Rather than end on a despairing note, Stephens offered the Class of 2014 some helpful advice (Let’s hope they’re not too offended to take it) ~

You can still take charge of your education, and of your lives. The cocoon years are over; the micro-aggressions are about to pour down.
 
Deal with it. Revel in it. No consequential idea ever failed to offend someone; no consequential person was ever spared great offense. Those of you who want to lead meaningful lives need to begin unlearning most of what you’ve been taught, starting right now.

 
Related:
Campus Thought Conformity
Dude, Stop Microaggressing My People – The Plight of German Americans ~ The College Fix mocks the hypersensitivity of “Mexican national-holiday-legitimacy defenders.”