By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
It is that time of the year again as I write this, the last week of September, Banned Books Week. I keep thinking that the trendy leftists behind this yearly tub-thumping against censorship will get hit with an “uh-oh moment” and start sending emails to each other to stop this annual bout of self-congratulatory posturing.
Why would they do that? Well, wouldn’t you think they would be alarmed that the American people will notice that they are the same crowd that is leading the charge to censor everything they disagree with in the name of political correctness?
Shouldn’t they be worrying about what their response will be if someone asks them how they can lead the charge against “microaggressions” and to disinvite conservative speakers on campus, while at the same time becoming indignant when some parents’ group wants to remove a book glamorizing teenage homosexual encounters from a high school’s reading list? But they are unfazed. The champions of Banned Books Week go on, head high and undaunted. The “free speech” advocates get away with ignoring the list of the books that they ban.
What books am I talking about? Check it out for yourself. Your local high school library is not likely to have copies of Joel Chandler Harris’ Song of the South, or the children’s story about “Little Black Sambo,” or books by former homosexuals describing how they were able to cure themselves of a same-sex attraction, books that could be described as anti-Semitic, books glamorizing right-wing militias. There will be no videos in the school library of the old Amos and Andy show or The Our Gang comedies, because of what critics allege is material demeaning of African-Americans that can be found in them.
Why isn’t this material placed on the list of “banned books” meant to illustrate close-mindedness during Banned Books Week? Why is it always The Catcher in the Rye, The Diary of Anne Frank, and The Grapes of Wrath, as if book-banning is isolated to narrow-minded yahoos from the Bible Belt?
It is a classic example of how the secular left pushes its agenda. They were in favor of freedom of speech at colleges when administrators with traditional values were in charge. When that was the case, the leftists called for the freedom of speech of Marxists and advocates for the sexual revolution. But once the leftists got control of those schools, everything changed. Political correctness became the norm, and disagreement from the left-wing consensus became “hate speech.” And it was banned, censored.
Similarly, it is “censorship” and “book banning” for the left when books and movies that promote left-wing values are removed from library shelves, but an admirable stand against racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia when “threatening” reading material and guest speakers are kept off campus. It would be a laughable example of a double-standard, if the left in this country did not keep getting away with the deception.
On another, and often discussed, topic in First Teachers: the best ways for conservative and Catholic students to deal with the left-wing bias on college campuses these days. Marlo Safi, a junior at the University of Pittsburgh, described her experiences in an article in the September 23 edition of the website of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (https://home.isi.org/behind-enemy-lines).
She illustrates that it is possible for conservative students to get through the minefields in the modern college setting without sacrificing their beliefs. Her words should prove both informative and reassuring for young conservatives. Safi writes, “Being the elephant in the room never used to faze me. As a columnist for my campus newspaper, the Pitt News, I was accustomed to being the lone voice speaking for conservative principles amid bleeding-heart cries for ‘social justice.’ I was also used to being demonized for my beliefs. Still, this past spring I accepted the paper’s offer to become an editor for the Opinions section.”
Safi goes on to describe her first day on the job as editor, when she realized that the editorial board “thought of me as more than just the new editor; I was the Arab conservative.” Safi admits that the peer pressure affected her: “I started self-censoring my ideas so as not to offend anyone. I often found myself drowned out by my colleagues’ idealistic pleas to end gentrification or by their accusations of sexism. Pretty soon I stopped giving my opinion on contentious issues out of fear of being judged a bigot or a right-wing nut-job. I even hid my laptop, which was covered with stickers celebrating William F. Buckley Jr., Ronald Reagan, and free speech.”
She admits that that her “coworkers’ relentless attacks and judgments got to her,” that their “challenges on issues such as gay marriage and Planned Parenthood led her to question her own perspective.”
Looking back on the experience led her to “see how easy it is for even principled conservative students to get swept up in the progressive tide on college campuses. It almost happened to me. I was vilified, caricatured, and ostracized. The way my coworkers reacted to me, I might as well have walked around the office draped in a Confederate flag.”
But Safi did not break. “Ultimately I didn’t succumb to the leftist pressure. For weeks I endured frustration and self-doubt, but as I approached the end of my editorship, I reminded myself that I hadn’t embraced conservatism on a whim. Moving past progressivism’s superficial appeal, I had embraced conservative principles based on careful study of the issues and close reading of great conservative thinkers. So while I was at the Pitt News I threw myself into rereading giants like Nobel Prize-winning economists Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. The pillars of my conservative beliefs became sturdier, not weaker.
“I embraced being an outcast and decided I could not falter. Although I did not particularly enjoy my time as an editor at the Pitt News, I am eternally grateful for the experience. It taught me about empathy and listening to other perspectives. It also taught me how to be a better conservative.”
This is an impressive account of this young woman’s experience. But it is sad that an intelligent young conservative should have to go through such pressure at her university. Not every conservative student will be able to hold to their convictions as she did. There is no other way to say it: The freethinkers at Pitt put her through the mill for thinking freely.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
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