Ideas matter: Just look at Baghdad U
by Jessica Peck Corry

The campus is full of bright, idealistic students eager to make the future for their country a better place. Yet, like on too many campuses, they are hindered by a lack of tolerance for ideological diversity. On this campus, speaking out or simply observing a minority religion can cost you a lot more than good grades - it can cost you your life.

At Baghdad University and throughout Iraq in recent months, dozens of professors and students have been gunned down - the result of vicious disagreements between Shiites and Sunnis. In July, a police major was killed when a bomb exploded outside the gates of a university in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown.

Critics of the fight to bring ideological diversity to America’s universities mock its intentions and goals, but as the situation on Iraq’s campuses proves, ideas matter. On America’s campuses today, like in Iraq, there is intolerance for those who vocalize unpopular viewpoints, ranging from Christianity to support for the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

To understand the importance of diverse viewpoints, we need look no further than two of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most recent controversial decisions, through which it shocked America by ruling against property rights, as well as the rights of the sick and dying.

In the first case, Kelo v. New London, the court ruled that the government can take property away from its owner simply because it doesn’t generate enough tax revenue. While socialist city planners and money-hungry developers praised the decision, small business owners and families were shocked at the court’s disregard for the Fifth Amendment, which is supposed to protect our homes and land from illegitimate government takings.

Bringing it back to higher education: imagine a university political science program staffed with only professors who supported the court’s decision, all believers in the Leninist planning that the decision allows? What would be the repercussions for society after the students who graduated from the program - indoctrinated to believe that the government knows better than the people how to care for, or utilize, private property - became tomorrow’s leaders? The Constitution would be gravely at risk.

The Court’s 6-3 decision to strike down the rights of medical marijuana patients was an equally dangerous blow to democracy. In its June decision, the court incorrectly used the commerce clause to say that the federal government has the right to prosecute the sick and dying who have legally obtained their medication under their state’s constitution and who have not crossed state lines with it. Though it’s hard to envision at today’s universities, what if students were taught that this type of federal intervention was somehow a good thing - that the people in the eleven states where medical marijuana laws have been passed deserve to have their values and rights trampled on?

Even worse than these two scenarios, what if students never learned about either of these decisions at all? Think students couldn’t be vulnerable to such ignorance? Think again.

Just last year, when the University of Colorado attempted to shut down an Affirmative Action bake sale, clearly protected political satire as speech supported by the ACLU and media outlets across the nation, one student - a journalism major - called into a Denver radio station and said that the bake sale organizers deserved to have the event shut down. She said she supported the First Amendment, but that the message purported by these students was so offensive that it didn’t deserve to be protected.

Fortunately, in the face of a threat of a federal lawsuit, university administrators allowed the event to go on.

Tolerance for ideological diversity is essential. People are literally dying to attend college in Iraq. Without support for different viewpoints, any society flounders into a chronic state of intolerance, and potentially, violence. It’s time we learn a lesson or two from the courageous students and professors at Baghdad U. and celebrate what should be the value that bonds us all - a willingness to protect each other’s ideas and values.

The editorial originally appeared in the Colorado Daily on July 28, 2005.

ARVADANS FOR RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT

Released June 27, 2004
720/628-5756

A BRIEF MESSAGE FROM THE MEMBERS OF ARVADANS FOR
RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT

Arvadans For Responsive Government was established in 2003 to serve as a community
voice on important decisions related to eminent domain and zoning decisions in our city.
This report has been produced as a resource for families, small business owners, city
officials, and any other community members interested in learning more about protecting
our property rights. (more…)

The University of Colorado is a good choice for college. Actually, it’s great one. There I said it. In a time when such comments are uttered only by those getting university paychecks, an outsider has confirmed it as fact.

Over the last few years, it all too often seemed that CU topped national rankings only in areas where no school would want to. From its unshakable party school status to the political imbalance among its faculty, or most recently, for its ability to grab the most consecutive days of bad front-page headlines, CU couldn’t catch a break. This was all before you even began discussing Boulder’s favorite pseudo-Indian professor.

But there is another side to the story. There is the good side. After a column I wrote last month questioning taxpayer funding for faculty travel, I got an e-mail from a CU professor saying he was tired of CU always being trashed in the media. As a proud CU alum, I sympathize. I’m the irrational CU fan after all. I’ve already begun teaching my daughter the CU fight song-she’s only six weeks old. I have my diploma hung proudly over my desk.

Loyalty to CU, however, also means telling the truth. While I’m often the first to point out the ugly when it comes to Colorado’s universities, let me be the first to say I believe CU is turning the corner after a rough couple of years. And in honor of this belief, I’m dedicating this column, gasp, to all that is good about dear old CU.

Of course, there is the obvious. CU shines in the sciences. This is the cornerstone of every CU advertising campaign. It’s home to Nobel prize winners and one of the nation’s top aerospace engineering programs, sending 15 of its former students into space. The College of Arts & Sciences is also home to a proud and diverse alumnus that includes artists, musicians, U.S. Senators and even a Supreme Court justice. The law school leads the nation with its environmental program.

Also obvious: CU is home to the most beautiful campus in America. It is more scenic than Pepperdine, located on Malibu’s cliffs overlooking the Pacific, and with better architecture than any East Coast institution. The sunshine here is addictive. The student body just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.

Ivy League snobs can look at a town like Boulder and denounce its sophomoric ways. It is, after all, hard to defend a student culture that celebrates couch burning as an annual ritual. But to assume that this is all there is to Boulder is to miss out. So much of learning at CU is done outside of the classroom. With the largest student government in the nation, there is a place for everyone. I mean everyone. Even the anarchists joined together to create the “Organization of Mental Freedom” club.

And despite common misconception, CU is actually a good place to be a conservative. Republicans, Christians, libertarians, political moderates and other social outcasts can thrive amongst the fields of red. It is here that such rejects are challenged at every step of the way. As freshmen, they enter a boxing ring where they are the underdog. Four years later, they emerge as the ones prepared to take life’s punches.

Go ahead and attack America. They have a response. Tear down their political posters. Don’t worry; they have more tape to put them up again. Shout them down at rallies. They inevitably have a megaphone in their backpack. Threaten to squash their free speech rights. They have their attorney on speed dial.

While students at other institutions are holed away in some library, CU students are learning how to think and just as important, how to face adversity.

Next month, another proud alum, U.S. Senator Hank Brown, will take the helm as CU’s next president. As I’ve written before, his administration promises to bring fiscal accountability, political sanity and business acumen back to Boulder.

And with the tenacity and passion that has defined CU throughout its vivid history, CU promises to fight its way back to the top. There, I said it.

This editorial originally appeared in the Colorado Daily on July 13, 2005.

Tune in to KNUS 710 AM in Denver from 5 to 8 p.m. on Sunday, July 10th as Jessica co-hosts “Backbone America” radio. Jessica will be checking and responding to email during the show. jessica@jessicacorry.com. Topics to be discussed include the U.S. Supreme Court’s most important recent decisions, ranging from medical marijuana to eminent domain–and everything in between.