Charles Murray’s Letter to Azusa Pacific Students

I am slightly preoccupied this morning and in a fog thanks to a fire alarm first announcing the weakness of its battery in the middle of the night.  (But I am being redundant.  Fire alarms always first announce the weakness of their batteries in the middle of the night.)

But I cannot let pass an open letter from Charles Murray to the students of Azusa Pacific University, particularly since it is a good companion to yesterday’s post.  It happens that he was long scheduled to speak there.  But the oh-so tolerant and sensitive “Shut Up” cabal let their disapproval be known, and his appearance was “postponed.”

Murray uses the occasion well to confront the increasing vapidity of U. S. higher education and its “Shut Up” culture.  He begins:

I was scheduled to speak to you tomorrow. I was going to talk about my new book, “The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead,” and was looking forward to it. But it has been “postponed.” Why? An email from your president, Jon Wallace, to my employer, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), said “Given the lateness of the semester and the full record of Dr. Murray’s scholarship, I realized we needed more time to prepare for a visit and postponed Wednesday’s conversation.” This, about an appearance that has been planned for months. I also understand from another faculty member that he and the provost were afraid of “hurting our faculty and students of color.”

You’re at college, right? Being at college is supposed to mean thinking for yourselves, right? Okay, then do it.

Indeed, U. S. universities are becoming institutes of indoctrination rather that places where actual thought and listening to competing views is encouraged.  But, as I said, I am too much in a fog to say much more, so do go read Murray’s excellent letter for yourself.