Hurray for the US Supreme Court.
If you thinks top US colleges don't have an agenda, and aren't actively indoctrinating young people into a certain way of thinking, the recent Court ruling has got to wake up call.
"In an 8-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the federal government could force colleges that accept federal money to allow military recruiters on campus.
Justices rejected a free-speech challenge from law schools and professors who claimed they should not have to associate with military recruiters or promote their campus appearances."
At the heart of the issue was the law school's opposition to the "don't ask, don't tell'' policy on gays and lesbians in the armed forces, which, in and of itself, is fine. People have opinions, and are free to express them.
But what I love, and what I hope people see, is that these top law schools, including Golden Gate University and law teachers at Stanford University and the University of San Francisco, all got it wrong.
The Supreme Court was unanimous in their opinion - a supreme rarity. Call it a resounding slap-down, if you will.
The colleges didn't want recruiters on campus because most college administrators and professors are ideologic liberals. At their heart they hate the military, and everything it represents, especially in this time of conservative power in the US. The objection to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was just an attempt at a legal excuse to keep the military and recruiters off campuses.
They used the arguement that it was a violation of their free speech to have to allow the recruiters, because they'd appear to be endorsing something they truly do not endorse.
WTF?
College is supposed to be a place of learning not just about academics, but about life, too. If we shelter our young people from the realities of life, we're doing a great disservice to future generations.
This is a tough, hostile, dangerous world we live in. In the U.S., recent generations have carved out a nice, reasonably safe society for ourselves, where we can blissfully ignore the greater truths of life on earth, due in large part to the sacrifice of the millions who have served in the U.S. military - the very military most liberals despise.
But the world at large is still a freakin' dangerous place. College men and women (not children folks, they are young Men and Women, old enough to make choices for themselves) should be given all the facts on which to make decisions, not be sheltered and indoctrinated at our Universities.
I think the Supreme Court took a huge step in the right direction. The fact that THE LAWS SCHOOLS got it wrong on the merits of THE LAW tells me a lot about the law schools, ya know?
6 comments:
In my opinion, I think that the government has no right to be in the education business, but since we are, I agree with the ruling. I believe that since the government has dipped their hands into education, it has only gone downhill when compared to other industrialized nations.
All though this was as you described, "a smack down," I am anxious to hear their rulings on several more issues in the future. I love having a more conservative court.
Other nations' governments aren't involved in education? That's a new one to me, to be honest. I thought just about every industrialized nation, at least, had some form of government sanctioned education.
Granted there are, all over the world, private institutions of learning. We have private religious schools, and home schools, and various academies, but they still have to meed certain state criteria for their cirruculum.
I wonder if those around the world, that do NOT have any government input, are really that much better?
I mean, I've heard the taliban (small "t", not capital "T") schools of Pakistan and Afghanistan give a fine religious muslim education. However, without oversight they've become breeding grounds for extremism, of a type you just don't see in western Christian schools, or in western society in general.
I do agree with you, though: I love the more conservative Supreme Court. I just hope my conservative comrades don't try to ram too much change through too quickly. Society just doesn't change on a dime, and I think if idealogues try to swing the pendulum to far to the right too quickly, there will be a huge backlash.
I wasn't meaning to imply that other nations don't dip their hands into the education of their citizens. I only meant that since our government started getting heavily involved, our education has gone downhill. The way I worded it was confusing.
I wouldn't say that the taliban (with a small 't') is on the top of the list but there are plenty of countries above us now that never used to be. What has changed to cause this shift?
I have a good article on how public education is cheating our children that I am planning on posting this Friday.
Ah... yes... the muddy waters clear some. ;-)
The beauracracy involved in public education is cumbersome and unresponsive to the nation's education needs, and something, eventually, must be done to fix that. On that I think we definitely agree.
the interesting thing about this ruling, if I understand it correctly, is that it went two ways. Schools had to give the same help for military recruiters that they provided for other recruiters, but schools were protected in their "free speech," which meant they while helping the military, they could also denounce it. It seems that schools were providing some help such as sending out flyers to students, but not the military. Although the ruling seemed fair, I was left wondering why schools had to do anything other than provide a space for recruiters to meet with students.
Exactly, Sage. The schools are expressly free to demonstrate, heckle, march, whatever they want, in opposition to the military recruiters and what they represent. They just have to provide them the same access the school provides to other recruiters, or risk losing federal funding.
And, if they want to go private and forego(sp?) federal funding, they are free to do that, and then they don't have to let ANYONE on their campus they don't want.
I just don't think there's a single university in America, "private" or not, that does not, in some fashion, take federal funds.
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