Graduation Day
Thomas C. Reeves, The Wisconsin Policy Research Institute

A survey by the Young America’s Foundation discovered that of the nation’s “top” 100 colleges and universities, as ranked by U.S. News, leftist commencement speakers outnumber conservative speakers by a seven-to-one ratio. It seems almost natural for major campuses to turn to an assortment of left-wing media personalities and Democratic Party leaders. Among the former this year were New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, CNN’s Tim Russert and Wolf Blitzer, former news anchor Ted Koppel, PBS commentator Bill Moyers, and anti-Iraq war actor Bradley Whitford. Stanford University took an unusual step by inviting a clergyman: leftist radical and homosexual apologist Rev. William F. Swing. YAF spokesman Jason Mattera declared, “For fourteen years, we’ve shown that college administrators are using commencement ceremonies to send their students off with one more predictable lecture.”

I can’t remember reading about a Wisconsin college or university hosting a conservative graduation speaker. The business school at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee is named after its major donor, a conservative businessman and philanthropist, and that’s probably as close to intellectual diversity as one may expect in this state. When Marquette University opened its new multi-million dollar library, the featured speaker was leftist actor Martin Sheen, who had not even attended college. On the nation as a whole, the conservative New Criterion has commented, “In the last few decades, the academy has mutated from being an ivory tower into a hermetic and increasingly ideological redoubt.”

Some leading institutions of higher education offer special graduation ceremonies based on race, color, and sexual identity. There are separate functions for homosexuals at Princeton, UCLA, MIT, three University of California campuses, the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, and Iowa State. Some institutions even have special freshman orientation programs based on the same criteria. Syndicated columnist John Leo observes that “the core reason for separatist graduation is the obvious: on campus, assimilation is a hostile force, the domestic version of American imperialism.” (See Leo’s “Identity-Group Commencements”.) But isn’t the whole policy of preferences and reverse discrimination in college and university admissions based on the alleged need for “diversity”? And isn’t that cliché virtually a synonym for integration, the opposite of separation? Come to think of it, are degrees in women’s studies, black studies, Latino studies, and queer theory preparing graduates to lead happy and intelligent lives in a pluralistic, capitalist, and highly competitive civilization?

While a professor, I never attended a graduation exercise. I sought not only to avoid the hot air from the podium, but also because I knew that so few of the graduates had sought and been given a rigorous, intellectually demanding, and broad education for their money. Yes, there had been individual achievement in all areas; three cheers for the few. But who in those robes with the silly hats was committed to a life of learning and thought? How many would elevate their cultural tastes? How many among the graduates had even a vague interest in anything beyond making money, having fun, and being politically correct? Many of them had already sold their books. Seniors often told me how delightful life would soon be when they no longer had to study.

Even the history majors, often planning to be school teachers, rarely expressed interest in anything intellectual. Journals, even solid magazines, even the better newspapers, were beyond their scope. Many had been spoon fed with multiple-choice tests and given top grades for term papers prepared in two weeks. Their future grasp of the world, one suspects, would come largely from the news readers and commentators on television and radio, the same prattling, giggling, empty-headed Barbie dolls who keep the high school graduates informed and aroused.

Graduation ceremonies would mean something more, of course, if seniors were given examinations at the end of their four to six years to show that they had actually received a solid and well-rounded education. But the trend is in the opposite direction, as the clamor for more college graduates increases and campuses seek to grow ever larger. In the future, we may expect lower academic standards, more vocational training, more bizarre ideological majors, and higher graduation rates. In short, there will likely be even less reason to participate in the ceremonies in June. Unless you want to see Oprah or one of the Clintons in person.
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