Back in the last century when I was in college, one of the favorite campus mantras was “Question Everything!” Non-conformity was the order of the day. Many of my fellow students actually seemed to major in rebelling against the establishment.
 
Fast forward a few decades and college is the least-likely place we’ll find a rebellion breaking out. Long gone is that revolutionary spirit. Today’s campus is a rainbow coalition of utopian visions and non-judgmental sameness. The new collective maxim appears to be “Question Nothing.”
 
Robert Weissberg, writing at the American Thinker has a name for the current crop of college activists: “Social Justice Warriors.” I would replace the “social” with “socialist;” and “warriors” with “workers.” There’s more than a hint of the totalitarian about these kids. And the only thing they appear to be at “war” with is reality.
 
As Weissberg relates, the latest trend at major universities seems to be presenting the administration with a set of fanciful “demands” calculated to do the impossible – make life “fair.” Last year at Dartmouth, a group of 30 students commandeered the president’s office to announce a “Freedom Budget.” They were calling for ~

… greater diversity, eliminating sexism and heterosexism, an improved campus climate for minorities and gays, banning the term “illegal immigrant,” offering a class on undocumented workers in America, creating a professor of color lecture series, and harsher penalties for sexual assault, among many, many others.

Other student wishlists have included:
• more diverse student bodies
• mandatory sensitivity training for faculty and administrators
• a “safe” multicultural center for students from “under-represented” groups
• removing all racial descriptions from university police reports
• offering gender-neutral bathrooms at all college facilities

 
These young people actually seem to believe that reality itself can be altered to conform to their self-determined definition of justice.

The shallowness of these demands is breathtaking and suggests that these activists are just winging it. The Dartmouth students are surely among America’s brainiest but why do they denounce “ableism”? Are they suggesting that acknowledging variations in ability is morally wrong and if differences are to be abolished (hopeless anyhow), how would society function? Why must the campus offer gender-neutral bathrooms?

 
 
The University of Michigan has taken this silliness to a whole new level with their Orwellian “Inclusive Language Campaign” ~

(The college) recently released a banned words list as part of its $16,000 “inclusive language” campaign on campus. The move, which many are deeming an infringement on free speech, is reportedly designed to teach students that “certain words are considered offensive.”

For example ~
• “That’s so gay”
• “ghetto
• “I want to die”
• “illegal alien”
• “That’s retarded”
• “tranny”
• “gypped”

 
[To illustrate how nonsensical this censorship effort is, the “N” word didn’t make the list. But “insane” did. So I guess we can’t say: “This ‘Inclusive Language Campaign’ is pure insanity!”]
 
Steven Crowder tried to get these young U of M drones to understand that this ridiculous policy actually violates Freedom of Speech ~
 

 
I’m not sure how successful he was. Without discussion, debate or critical thinking, they’ve almost subconsciously replaced the First Amendment with a newly-contrived Right Not to be Offended.

 
Eric Metaxas, author of “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy,” recently wrote about his first-hand experience with collegiate intolerance for diversity of opinion or worldview. He was addressing students and faculty at The University of the South: Speak Freely – So Long as You Agree with Me ~

In my convocation address I said that there is a move afoot on campuses “to marginalize and even to demonize voices of traditional and historic Christian faith. . . and that this is troubling . . . because to think we can have real and enduring freedom and real liberal education without robust voices of faith ignores history.”
 
I spoke of Os Guinness’ “Golden Triangle” of freedom, virtue, and faith, all of which depend on each other, which is why standing up for religious freedom is so vital for any healthy society.
 
And then I urged students to “listen respectfully” to those with whom they disagree, because “This is at the heart of liberal education and it’s at the heart of democracy and freedom.”

 
Now I’ve heard Metaxas speak several times. He’s low-key, humorous, thought-provoking, winsome even – hardly “offensive.” Apparently not everyone agrees ~

At the time I thought it went rather well. But then I read an opinion piece published in the student newspaper. It called my speech “one of the most offensive and disgusting” the writer had ever witnessed. It said that, “Beneath a thin veneer of reason and civil discourse,” I “continued to push [my] evangelical agenda.”

 
Strangely enough, when he pressed for specifics, no one could say exactly what it was that they found so “offensive” ~

… no one seemed to be able to say what in the speech bothered them. They just flat out were offended.

 
To be sure, those who objected to the speech were in the minority. But for those who claimed “offense,” it’s as if they’d been programmed to have a negative reaction to certain words, phrases or topics but they’re unable to articulate why. Almost Pavlovian. It brings to mind the Eloi in H.G. Wells “The Time Machine.”

I don’t want to believe that these young minds are so tightly closed already. It doesn’t bode well for America’s future.
 
And so as Crowder emphasized, and Metaxas concludes, we’ll just have to continue to risk “offending” them with the truth ~

… if we grow silent out of fear that we’ll be shouted down or criticized, we’ll soon lose our right to speak freely at all. And that would be disastrous, not only for preaching the Gospel, but for maintaining a free and truly tolerant society.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Related:
Campus Thought Conformity
FIRE ~ (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) An organization founded to defend and sustain individual rights at America’s colleges and universities ~

Freedom of speech is a fundamental American freedom and a human right, and there’s no place that this right should be more valued and protected than America’s colleges and universities. A university exists to educate students and advance the frontiers of human knowledge, and does so by acting as a “marketplace of ideas” where ideas compete. The intellectual vitality of a university depends on this competition—something that cannot happen properly when students or faculty members fear punishment for expressing views that might be unpopular with the public at large or disfavored by university administrators.