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While 95% said they believe in "free speech," ironically 51% said they favor on-campus speech codes.
And 72% favor disciplinary action for "any student or faculty member on campus who uses language that is considered racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise offensive."
Who decides what language is "racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise offensive?"
The Professor---of course--- who intimidates the student who may have a different belief.
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago says this process extends beyond the campus---our government is imposing its own version of "Sharia law" on this nation.
The survey, sponsored by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale University also found that 52% of the students surveyed think that their college or university should forbid certain people with a history of "hate speech" from speaking on campus even though the same percentage also believes that the First Amendment does not make an exception for speech that some consider "hateful."
Lauren Noble, who heads up the Buckley Program, concludes, "The survey results confirmed some of what we expected, but they also revealed troubling surprises."
Nobel said, "It is the opinion of the Buckley Program that university campuses are best served by free speech and open speech, but lamentably, that opinion is anything but unanimous."
Parents and cultural leaders are also lamenting the incarceration of free speech.
"Free speech," through the manipulation of words and their meaning, has become a favored tool for suppression of so-called free speech in favor of a narrow, closed minded approach to life and its meaning---And they call it "progressivism."
It is administered not through open minded education, but by indoctrination through intimidation.
Cardinal Francis George, head of the Catholic archdiocese of Chicago said in an article last year, "The levers of power in government, education, entertainment, and the media are forcing a 'public creed', a 'fake church' that requires all citizens to approve of gay marriage and related sexual anomalies or be punished by the State, just as Christians and Jews are fined for their religion in countries governed by Sharia law."
I'm not Catholic, but his comments caught my attention because they are not Catholic centered, they are reality centered.
Cardinal George says, "We are told that, even in marriage itself, there is no difference between men and women, although nature and our very own bodies clearly evidence that men and women are not interchangeable at will in forming a family."
Indeed.
He says, "The 'ruling class', those who shape public opinion in politics, in education, in communications, in entertainment, is using the civil law to impose its own form of morality on everyone....those who do not conform to the official religion, we are warned, place their citizenship in danger."
The cardinal noted, "Americans who objected on religious grounds to the Obamacare mandate on contraceptives, sterilizations, and abortion inducing drugs were chastised by many in the media."
He says the chastising voices were not those of "nativists, or the Know Nothing Party, or the Ku Klux Klan," rather it was "the self righteous voice of some members of the American establishment today who regard themselves as 'progressive' and 'enlightened'."
He notes what, for most of us, is a growing awareness---"It already means in some states that those who run businesses must conform their activities to the official religion or be fined, as Christians and Jews are fined for their religion in countries governed by Sharia law."
He says this imposition of secularism does much to weaken and destroy the family, which in turn has forced the State to impose more and more restrictions on people and their activities that are unloosed from the "internal restraints that healthy family life teaches."
The cardinal asks what many are asking---How this situation may end? He believes it's unclear "because even among the ruling class there are still 'many Americans who do not want their beloved country to turn into a 'fake church'."
"And," he says, "Catholics and traditional Christians know by faith that Christ will return to judge the living and the dead and the church..."
This Protestant would say, "Amen."
Whatever the short term outcome in the culture, our calling is to stand upon the Word of God. And live it out in our lives.
R.C. Sproul in his book, "Five Things Every Christian Needs To Grow," said this:
“It is fashionable in some academic circles to exercise scholarly criticism of the Bible. In so doing, scholars place themselves above the Bible and seek to correct it. If indeed the Bible is the Word of God, nothing could be more arrogant. It is God who corrects us; we don’t correct Him. We do not stand over God but under Him.”
Be Faithful. Be Strong. Be Prayerful. Be Pro-Active. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.