The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News May 5, 2006

Have Universities Gone Wild?
GOP Speaker Says Colleges Are Lacking “Good Sense”
 
Citing Campus Craziness: Editorial writer John Fund criticizes the inconsistencies of colleges in his lecture earlier this week.
 

The Ronald Reagan Political Lectureship Series ended Tuesday night with a lecture from John Fund, a Wall Street Journal editorial writer, on the lack of accountability and transparency at some prestigious universities. The Ronald Reagan Series, a year-long series of lectures, was hosted by the Oberlin College Republicans and Steven Shapiro, OC ’83.

Fund began his lecture, “Have Some Universities Lost All Common Sense?” by highlighting the importance of scrutiny, accountability and transparency in all areas of life.

“As college students, you are often taught by your teachers to be skeptical and question authority...The government that is unexamined grows lazy and wasteful, and often has scandals,” he said. “[But] there’s one very large institution in American life that isn’t examined nearly enough — and that’s higher education.”

Before proceeding with his criticism of higher education, Fund clarified that not all universities and colleges are at fault. Most, Fund said, had well-functioning and well-intentioned administrations.

“My comments are going to be generic and not directed at any one campus, but with one exception. That is Yale University,” said Fund.

Earlier this year Yale admitted Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi as a special student. Hashemi was the deputy foreign minister for the Taliban at the time of the September 11th attacks.

“There are a few things that surprise me in life, and that was one of them,” said Fund. “I found all of this a little strange. I started making phone calls to see why he was going there. No one returned my phone calls within five days...Yale wouldn’t respond.”

While various news sources have covered the controversy, Yale has declined to respond to questions. Instead, Yale has issued a formal statement defending its decision. The statement, which Fund called vague, listed a few reasons for the admission of Hashemi. One was that his presence on campus would contribute to the intellectual environment by providing new perspectives. The other reason was that the State Department granted Hashemi a visa, indicating that the government did not consider him a threat.

An almost larger shock to Fund was the indifference Yale students displayed. Students did not protest Hashemi’s presence on campus despite a long history of protesting controversial issues. “There was very little discussion,” said Fund.

A member of Afghanistan’s parliament, Malalai Joya, recently visited Yale to speak on foreign policy. At the end of her lecture, she criticized Yale for admitting Hashemi.

None of the questions taken after Joya’s talk concerned Hashemi’s presence on campus, Fund said. He added that student reaction was inconsistent with reaction to other issues.

Two weeks before Joya’s appearance, a Harvard Law School graduate came to speak at Yale; however, he had a scandal in his history.

As a student he had once used the term ‘nigs’ in an online class forum about racism. Because of this history, one-third of his Yale audience including the dean of the law school walked out from his lecture, Fund said.

“Does anyone know of proportionality here?” Fund asked.

Fund closed his discussion on Yale by commenting on the gap between small college communities and the global community.

“I tell you this story on Yale to ask you why there seems to be such a gulf on the inside of communities between the outside world community,” Fund said. “The unexamined institution that doesn’t critically interact with the world around it becomes increasingly more isolated.”

Fund also discussed the future of college tuition. He said tuition has gone up 52 percent in the last 15 years, partially because financial aid increases tuition.

“You have tuition go up; you have people go to the government to ask for money; tuition goes up,” Fund said.

Fund said students may tend more and more toward online colleges in the future. He said there are 3.2 million online-college students in the United States today and colleges will have to adapt online to accommodate the modern world.

“There has to be some accommodation with the modern world,” Fund said. “[We] need to adapt technology [to the] educational system. You can keep a lot of it, but have to start adapting now.”

Fund is the recent author of Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Democracy. He currently manages www.opinionjournal.com and has been with the Wall Street Journal since the early 1980s.
 
 

   

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