The long march to bedlam.

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: STATE of the NATION

WHEN THE YOUTH counterculture movement emerged in the late 1960s, its leaders dreamed the future was theirs. They counted on young voters developing a permanent allegiance to the New Left. It did not happen right away. In the ensuing decades, there were enough older and culturally conservative voters to elect Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and the two George Bushes.

Despite elector disappointments, the New Left had a strategy--"the long march through institutions." For almost a half-century, the march has continued unabated and the results are stunning, if not frightening. The left has permeated the academic world, the media, major foundations, popular culture, and now, the Democratic Party. The overheated revolutionary rhetoric of the 1960s has been replaced by the soft language of inclusion, diversity, equity, and compassion. Designed to appeal to the idealistic young, this talk masks an agenda of control and exclusion. Nowhere is this more apparent than in higher education. The inheritors of the 1960s New Left now control the culture of the academy. Higher education represents a complete triumph of its long march. To challenge its agenda is tantamount to upending the moral order of the universe.

Recently, one Duke University professor made this bone-chillingly clear. In defending the firing of a senior colleague at Duke Divinity School for challenging the diversity mantra, this professor wrote on Facebook, "Being against diversity isn't an issue of academic freedom. It is academic malpractice. If you can't abide by Duke's policies, you shouldn't work for Duke."

Students have picked up on the notion that these cultural/political "norms" are sacrosanct--the accepted dogma of the time. Conservative speakers are not challenged with tough questions, but silenced and prevented from speaking on campus. If this requires disruption to the point of violence, so be it. Conservative scholar Charles Murray was prevented from speaking at Middlebury College as a result of a book he co-wrote more than 20 years ago, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life. In it, Murray looked at the issue of IQ and race. If faculty or students at Middlebury found his conclusions offensive, or simply wrong, his appearance gave them the perfect opportunity to ask tough questions--but no, they just shouted him down, drove him off campus, and even disrupted an off-campus dinner meeting with curious students and faculty. That will do the trick--no...