The Last Page
The Stanford Review: New Campus Radicals
Editorial
Volume XIII, Issue 3: October 1994

Not since the noisy protests of the 1960s has the American public heard as much from the university. The activists of those days, mostly faddish youths, challenged what they perceived as an unjust conservative establishment. Most of those '60s radicals have since defected to become yuppies. Many of the rest, the die-hards, now either linger at Berkeley square selling tie-dyes, or have tenure.

Once again there are students on campus disturbing the status quo-now a leftist orthodoxy established by the tenured among those '60s radicals. The students defiant of the current state of affairs usually espouse revered mainstream principles. Yet they are considered extremists on liberal university campuses, radicals who dare to state the unthinkable, reactionaries who backwardly resist a progressive and enlightened order. These new campus "radicals" hardly enjoy the unquestioned peer support so freely given to the 60s protestors.

We new campus "radicals" as The Stanford Review have told students, faculty and administrators a lot of things they haven't wanted to hear. Frequently we receive angry letters from students, and once even profanity and threats on our answering machine from a University employee. We find these attacks usually unwarranted or unfair, and mostly uninformed.

Thus we present the principles for which the Review Editorial Board stands. Many of these ideas are not new, enunciated earlier and more eloquently by superior minds; some are part of our great legacy as Americans, truly some of the most enlightened principles about government, education and justice ever formulated, handed down to us by our Founding Fathers, themselves great and enlightened men.

Principle 1: We believe the fundamental goal of the university should be the relentless and disinterested pursuit of truth. Other ideals, such as "community-building," the utopian, feel-good notion of the day, must never take priority over this educational mission. In pursuit of knowledge, high academic standards and the top importance of teaching must be maintained. Towards these ends, university resources should be efficiently and appropriately distributed.

Principle 2: We believe that truth is most likely to emerge via a "marketplace of ideas," where members of the Stanford community may freely exchange knowledge and debate ideas. Diversity of ideas is thus essential and good. Nonetheless, diversity of ideas does not depend upon racial diversity: we resist stereotypical notions of race and gender which maintain that there is any unitary "perspective" for women, for blacks, or for "dead white males."

Also, we are committed, through free and rational discourse, to ending venomous and unenlightened stereotypes of race, ethnicity and gender. The enforcement of a "politically correct" position through regulatory speech codes, however, is antithetical to the free marketplace of ideas and is ultimately counter-productive.

Principle 3: We are committed to equal opportunity, worth and protection for all races and both sexes. Everyone with equal talents and abilities should have the same access to favorable jobs and positions, in American society generally and at Stanford specifically. This is part of the notion of a meritocracy, where one's position is based solely on ability, not other personal or political criteria. For this reason, we find intolerable discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity or creed. Thus, we find the "equal opportunity affirmative action" policy of our Admissions office oxymoronic, as it factors criteria other than ability, such as race and sex, into decisions.

Principle 4: In the same way that individuals should not be judged by criteria other than their ability, the greatness of their ideas should be determined solely by their merit, not by the color or sex of their authors. We favor a great works reading list, or "canon," determined as much as possible by objective, yet debatable, criteria such as the impact, endurance, persuasiveness, originality, clarity, depth and educational importance of the work.

The alternative effort to determine the introductory (CIV) reading list, currently embraced by campus revisionists, is based on "equal representation," which, we believe, turns the canon into a divisive sort of cultural Olympics where everyone looks for and roots for what "my guys" wrote. While recognizing that a properly flexible canon should be periodically reexamined, we resist such a subjective approach to curricular changes.

Principle 5: Finally, we maintain that all parties should follow fair procedure, never gaining advantage by circumventing the rules of fair debate. We have unfortunately found that many campus administrators and groups are often willing to ignore their own written procedures in implementing their interests or policies. This sort of political sleaziness cannot be tolerated in the university environment.

Thus, we state clearly and openly what we believe. We have no hidden agendas. We don't hide behind doubletalk. All of our positions are derived from these fundamentals. Some of you might be surprised to find yourselves agreeing with us. We don't think this would be true for many of our ideological opponents on this campus if they clearly stated their tenants. But, then, they rarely do.

So, if you disagree with out principles, we challenge you to engage us in rational discourse. But if you do agree, we welcome you to stop by the office, fill out a staff application, and join the new campus "radicals" at The Stanford Review.

Page last modified on Thursday, 02-Mar-2006 00:15:11 MST.