Universities at their best

MIT Graduation 1998 Dean Hilda Hernandez-Gravelle of the Office of Race Relations and Minority Affairs at Harvard University called for a ban on fifties nostalgia parties because racism was rampant in America in the 1950s.

The following universities now have their own SWAT teams: Ohio State University, the University of Illinois, and the University of California at Berkeley and Davis.

The former president of Duke University appointed a committee to search out "disrespectful facial expressions" aimed at disadvantaged students.

During the Gulf War, the University of Maryland briefly forbade display of the American flag as hurtful to members of the peace movement.

MIT Graduation 1998 The Smith College Office of Student Affairs issued a pamphlet that defines "ableism" as "oppression of the differently abled, by the temporarily abled." The term "differently abled" was "created to underline the concept that differently abled individuals are just that, not less or inferior in any way..." "Ageism," according to the pamphlet, is "[o]ppression of the young and old, by young adults and the middle-aged, in the belief that others are 'incapable' or unable to take care of themselves."

Temple University's physical education department now offers a course called "Racism and College Athletics." The department of fine arts offers a course called "Dance Movement and Pluralism."

Stanford University offers the following courses: "Creation/Procreation," which examines "the gendered aspects of cosmological or religious systems"; "Gender and Science," which purports to study science free of outdated male assumptions; and "How Tasty Were My French Sisters," which is beyond speculation.

The City University of New York, faced with an acute fiscal squeeze and potential tuition hikes because of the state's $5 billion budget gap, spent $200,000 on a study to determine if the university needed more women's rooms on campus. University officials said they wanted to establish "potty parity" by constructing more bathrooms for females.


When Dr. Yosef A.A. ben-Jochannan delivered Wellesley College's 1993 Martin Luther King Jr. memorial lecture, he told his audience that Aristotle had gone to Egypt and robbed his philosophy from African writers in the library at Alexandria.

During the question period, Mary Lefkowitz, a Wellesley classicist, asked how Aristotle could have stolen his philosophy from the library at Alexandria when Aristotle had died before the library was even built. Mr. ben-Jochannan replied that he resented the "tone" of her question, while her colleagues maintained an embarrassed silence. After the lecture, several students came up to Ms. Lefkowitz to accuse her of racism. When she went to the dean to describe the lecture, he replied that everyone had a different but "equally valid" view of history. At a faculty meeting, one of her colleagues told her: "I don't care who stole what from whom."


Maybe it is time to return to Heather Has Two Mommies


MIT Center for Political Correctness, room NE43-414 / 545 Technology Square / Cambridge, MA 02139 USA / (617) 253-8574

Reader's Comments

"Differently Abled", HA! I am on Disability because of depression (chronic, severe) (and a few other problems). I am NOT differently abled: That would mean that I gained something equal to what I have lost, and that has not happened! "Disability" means just that: Some ability DISappeared. Forget Political Correctness (I do!); just use correctness. Dave

-- David Bessey, October 12, 1999
Hah! The University of Maryland should have banned flag waving as empty pseudo-patriotism. People who wish to be liberated from dependence on the petroleum producers should be driving smaller cars, and less often.

-- Albert Rogers, April 22, 2003
I think your just afraid that the flag wavers are real patriots ,which probably scares the heck out of you

-- Charles Flanigan, December 1, 2003
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