Tuesday, April 12, 2005
The BIG Story
In the 2003 NCAA basketball tournament, the team from tiny little Butler University made the Sweet Sixteen. I was about as proud as an double alum can get. -- I have both undergrad and graduate degrees from that institution.
Last week, while I was in Indianapolis, moments from campus, an incident occurred that could rob me of that pride. David Horowitz was lecturing as a guest of the local College Republicans, and was hit in the face with a pie. This is the story as told in the Butler campus paper. Here is the AP story as printed in the local Indianapolis paper. Here is that same local paper's take. Here is additional coverage by a local television station. Finally, here is an op-ed from the Washington Times addressing this incident and other recent, similar incidents.
I am so heartbroken, I almost cannot blog about this. I really love Butler, it is a great university that is just enough below the usual radar that it can offer a high quality education without all the hype and garbage. I was there in the turbulent 70's and loved it in part because it was not subject to all the mess that was prevalent on so many other campuses. Until this happened, I would recommend Butler to any student that was in that really good, but not quite Ivy League category, in other words, an "A-" student. They would get a great education for a fraction of the cost and without the competitive hassles.
Needless to say, I have reached out to a number of contacts that I have on campus. I'm at that age where a lot of my contemporaries are now chairing departments and sitting on boards. To date, the only thing I have that I can publish is a statement from the university president which is quoted extensively in all the links I have presented above, so I won't reprint it here.
David Horowitz has written about the incident and the subsequent apologies from the university administration on his site.
Pray for Butler, please.
Last week, while I was in Indianapolis, moments from campus, an incident occurred that could rob me of that pride. David Horowitz was lecturing as a guest of the local College Republicans, and was hit in the face with a pie. This is the story as told in the Butler campus paper. Here is the AP story as printed in the local Indianapolis paper. Here is that same local paper's take. Here is additional coverage by a local television station. Finally, here is an op-ed from the Washington Times addressing this incident and other recent, similar incidents.
I am so heartbroken, I almost cannot blog about this. I really love Butler, it is a great university that is just enough below the usual radar that it can offer a high quality education without all the hype and garbage. I was there in the turbulent 70's and loved it in part because it was not subject to all the mess that was prevalent on so many other campuses. Until this happened, I would recommend Butler to any student that was in that really good, but not quite Ivy League category, in other words, an "A-" student. They would get a great education for a fraction of the cost and without the competitive hassles.
Needless to say, I have reached out to a number of contacts that I have on campus. I'm at that age where a lot of my contemporaries are now chairing departments and sitting on boards. To date, the only thing I have that I can publish is a statement from the university president which is quoted extensively in all the links I have presented above, so I won't reprint it here.
David Horowitz has written about the incident and the subsequent apologies from the university administration on his site.
I spoke with Dr. Bobby Fong, President of Butler University this afternoon. He deeply regretted and deplored the incident in which I was attacked by radicals during a lecture at Butler. He said they would be prosecuted. He said a university should be a place of civil discourse and that there should be zero tolerance of this kind of criminal behavior. I was pleased with our conversation and the President's commitment to creating and defending an academic environment that it is respectful, and that honors the principle of intellectual diversity. President Fong reinforced my belief that the principles of the Academic Bill of Rights are widely supported in the academic community and opposed only by radical ideologues. I believe we will see these principles formally adopted by many universities and states in the months to come.The rumor around campus is that it was not students, a rumor that I desperately hope to be fact. These attacks are bad, really bad. But when it happens at your alma mater, especially when that is a school know for its quiet academic excellence, it's a real gut wrencher. I am very grateful for Horowitz' grace in these circumstances.
It is not clear that all the attackers were Butler students. Radicals in Indiana targeted Bill Kristol when he spoke at Earlham College last week. It is possible a radical network has decided to pursue a strategy of intimidation to prevent conservatives from appearing on college campuses.
Pray for Butler, please.
