The moral fragility of modern education
Mark Hemingway | Schools value politics and ideology more than truth
https://wng.org/opinions/the-moral-fragi...tion-1665749292



In case you weren’t convinced that the state of higher education is in a place of free-fall, there have been some noteworthy events in recent months that bear mentioning.

The first is the BYU-Duke university fracas. After a Duke player at a volleyball game—with some assistance from camera happy family members—claimed she heard racial slurs being yelled at her from the crowd while she was serving, a credulous media spread the story far and wide. (Worth noting that the BYU-Duke incident spawned possibly the dumbest and most inflammatory newspaper column I’ve encountered, and I am a true connoisseur of bad journalism.) With hundreds of witnesses and video of the event, BYU conducted a thorough, good-faith investigation and concluded there’s no evidence that any slurs were said.

Instead of acknowledging the obvious possibility that the player misheard something from the din of the crowd, Duke doubled down. “We unequivocally stand with and champion [Duke volleyball players], especially when their character is called into question. Duke Athletics believes in respect, equality and inclusiveness, and we do not tolerate hate and bias,” read the statement. Actually, persisting with damaging accusations of racism when you’ve been confronted with evidence your claims are baseless is a pretty good reason to start questioning the character of those involved.

However, when it comes to woke excess it’s hard to top Oberlin college, which finally agreed to pay $36 million to a bakery near campus. After the bakery tried to stop students from shoplifting, the students in question deflected and said they were victims of racism by the bakery—a dubious claim that politically addled university administrators supported. Oberlin likely could have settled for much less had they not been determined to prove the 137 year-old family business was racist. A court found Oberlin guilty of defamation and the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the ruling.

Both the Duke and Oberlin incidents were heavily publicized, but another recent court case involving a college received little attention and bears mentioning. In July, a federal judge excoriated the University of Idaho for persecuting students—and a professor—for the crime of expressing Christian beliefs out loud.

And no that’s not hyperbole. Becket Adams at The Washington Examiner does a good job of summarizing the case, but the short version of what happened was this: Someone apparently left an anti-LGBT slur on a white board at the school, and there was a meeting to address what happened. Members of the law school’s Christian Legal Society showed up and prayed for the school’s LGBT community at the event. -- excerpt, rest at link above --