This essay by English professor Robert Boyers is worth a few minutes of your time. Anyone who has been in academia for 20 years or more has noticed a profound change. What used to be an open environment for discussion and criticism has become a closed system of speech monitoring and thought control. What's worse, administrators often side with the creepy totalitarians who try to shut down expressions of ideas with which they disagree (or to which they take offense).
I agree with Boyers that this is "genuinely alarming." Professors have never been among society's bravest individuals. When confronted by angry students, they capitulate, even if they believe the students to be misguided. Some professors are secretly gleeful whenever students "take down" a conservative professor. I would remind these cowards that they might be next. Indeed, they deserve to be next.
Native Americans counted coup. (Click the inserted image.) Today, students—with the assistance of craven administrators and fellow-traveling professors—count coup.
