Another Conservative Speaker Shut Off Campus

By Professor Doom



     I’ve mentioned many times the lockdown the Left (aka “Progressives,” among other names for them) has on our campuses, but you sure don’t read about it much in the news. I hardly cover specific cases, myself, unless it leads to a riot or something. Thus, I understand if the gentle reader doesn’t believe me when I say how everyday this behavior is, and so allow me to cover yet another “humdrum” cancelling of free speech on campus:

A College Divided Over a Harvard Professor

Concordia U's Liberal Arts College, in Canada, wanted conservative scholar Harvey Mansfield to speak at an alumni gala -- until it didn't. But revoking Mansfield's invite didn't settle an internal debate.

 Harvard isn’t exactly known as a bastion of conservative ideology, so it’s not like this guy walks around wearing swastikas or railing against abortion. Harvard’s pretty high up in the higher ed hierarchy, so you’d think a school would be happy to have him talk. Not if he’ll spout heresy, of course:


Citing alumni backlash over Mansfield’s past controversial statements on gender and gay marriage, the Canadian college then uninvited him and postponed the event.




    Oh no, he’s against gay marriage. Hey, does anybody else remember when Hillary Clinton was against gay marriage? I sure do, and thank goodness it’s on video. It’s weird how I seem to be the only one curious that she gets a free pass for “past statements,” but other people do not. When she speaks on campus (or anywhere else), these issues never arise…why is that? Of course, we’ll never deal with the hypocrisy until we first establish free speech as being important.


     Just how badly does it reflect on Concordia that their alumni are adamantly against free speech? I grant Canada doesn’t quite have the same free speech protections we do in the USA, but the fact remains, Concordia is not doing its students any favors.


      The professor has responded to the insult with class:


Comparing the current climate for conservative professors to McCarthyism, Mansfield wrote in his op-ed, “I little thought that I would now in my old age be qualified for exclusion from Concordia University in our free neighbor to the north, not as the member of a conspiratorial organization serving an enemy power, but simply for holding opinions shared by half the American -- and perhaps the Canadian -- population.”




     The above comment highlights one of the big problems with many of our converged campuses, taken over by Progressives: they don’t come close to representing the values of all the people whose tax dollars support them. People are waking up to this fact, and sending their kids elsewhere—be grateful not every school has this terminal problem!


      His speech, by the way, was on great literary works. Alas, he said some wrong things in the past that means he must be forever silenced on campus. What did he say, and how long ago was it?

…it’s his nonacademic work that has proved polarizing. He wrote a 2006 book, Manliness, and defended Lawrence Summers’s widely criticized 2005 comments about women's aptitude for quantitative fields.

Mansfield also has criticized affirmative action, linking it to grade inflation, and testified against gay marriage. Being gay doesn’t make for a life of “individual happiness,” for example, he said of anti-gay marriage legislation in Colorado in 1993.

     They really go back well over 20 years for this stuff…do the alumni really know this stuff, and hold on to their hate so diligently? I think it’s a fair question, because when Progressives speak, things they’ve said many years ago don’t seem to be a problem. Why does only one side get the free pass, again?


      Despite the university’s tale about  “alumni complaints” and how such complaints reflect so poorly on the school, that’s their story and they’re sticking to it:


Once the Liberal Arts College at Concordia announced its choice of speaker for the reunion, “a large number” of alumni reached out to faculty members to voice their concerns, Russell said. Many alumni stated that they would not attend the gala “because they objected to the views [Mansfield] has expressed publicly on women and homosexuals,” he added.




      Not to denigrate the professor here, but was he really so critically important in 1993 that his words are specifically recalled and reviled to this day? I barely remember anything anyone said then without a bit of jogging of my memory, and I suspect most of my readers are the same. Why should anyone believe this story?


     I’m sorry, just not buying it. Who are really complaining?


Professors within the college discussed the alumni concerns,…



     Yeah, I’m leaning towards the faculty, particularly Leftists who just can’t stand anyone (not on their side) who speaks heresy. Doesn’t it sound more credible that faculty would remember some testimony from over 25 years ago than alumni who probably wouldn’t even be alive at the time? I’m not ruling out admin either, mind you, I can totally see them throwing their alumni and the school under the bus just to protect their ideology.


      One faculty member is against insulting the school, Professor Mansfield, and the alumni just to advance Progressivism, and is willing to speak out:


He said Thursday that he’s received feedback from numerous alumni and students, with “10 to one” against disinvitation.




     What, you mean we're being lied to? I'm shocked, shocked. I sure hope he has a long career at Concordia…but the gentle reader can forgive me for having some doubts. He’s trying to preserve the integrity of the school, at least. I wish him luck.


Mansfield on Thursday “passed” on describing his current views on gender and gay marriage other than to say he’s “guilty” of holding conservative positions.




      Note that this consistent silencing of conservative speakers is having an effect. Mansfields knows things he said in the previous millennium (sigh…I remember when that wasn’t so long ago…) will be held against him, and isn’t about to add to his list of “crimes.” Do you think the Progressives will scruple to not attack Mansfield’s children when they get the chance? And so a scholar silences himself for love of his family.


      I reiterate this is an everyday event on campus now, and so, much like the silence of our scholars, is all but impossible for the uninitiated to notice. It happens all the same.



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