Ashamed
Reader comment on item: Extremists on Campus

Submitted by Jean Martin (United States), Jun 26, 2002 at 20:50

I am embarrassed and ashamed that such blatant antisemitism as well as anti-Americanism is taking place on the campuses of once-great universities that used to feel the calling to pass on the knowledge of the great and wonderful things about Western civilization. I regret that I could not allow a single one of my grandchildren to attend one of these institutions. Even some of the ones I myself attended have fallen prey to the madness. All civilizations have their faults, and all have developed over time, and none have reached that pinnacle of perfection we would all desire. However - for the institutions of higher learning in the greatest nation the world has yet known to turn against the very nation that has nurtured them and permitted them the freedom to develop as they chose is perfidy of the highest order, tantamount to treason.

What should we do? How should the nation respond? I have already joined every campaign that might make these strange people take notice, but I fear it isn't enough. Maybe what we have to do is to establish new colleges, small though they might be, to return to solid, traditional scholarship, and to the freedom of inquiry that characterized the best, in their heyday. At least we'd then have a place for those young people who would rather not be embroiled in continual struggles that incite hatred against not only certain others, but themselves as well.

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