ROGER KIMBALL
567
portunity to explain their presence." Poor babies! Presumably, what the
guards should do the next time they encounter a trespasser is to tap him
on the shoulder and inquire - politely - why he has broken in.
If, that is, there is a next time for those particular guards. Their con–
duct was
to
be "reviewed for possible disciplinary action." In a move
that Chairman Mao would have smiled upon, the panel further recom–
mended "that all security personnel receive training on working with
people from diverse backgrounds" - as if apprehending thieves is an ex–
ample of "working with people from diverse backgrounds"! Why worry
about education when there is so much reeducation, so much conscious–
ness-raising and sensitivity training, to be done! Like so many examples
of political correctness, the entire episode at first strains credibility - then
one realizes that what was simply incredible last week has now become
business as usual. One might almost have thought one was at a White
House retreat for Mr. Clinton's cabinet.
And it gets worse. In this summary, the panel concluded that the
campus security officers "should have recognized" that the students' be–
havior was "a form of student protest and not an indicator of criminal
behavior." Attend to the language:
According to the University's "Emergency Procedures Protocols,"
"the luniversity police] should have contacted the Office of the Vice
Provost for University Life as soon as it recognized that the students
were involved in a form of protest. Once the VPUL was notified of
the protest, Open Expression Monitors would have been dispatched
to observe and monitor the students' actions, in compliance with the
existing Open Expression Guidelines.
"Open Expression Monitors"? No wonder the adjective "Orwellian"
is so often used to describe the rhetoric of political correctness. It is a
perfect illustration of Orwellian "doublethink" and the principle enunci–
ated in
Animal Farm
that "all animals are equal, but some are more equal
than others." In order to appreciate this, one need only imagine what
Mr. Hackney's response would have been had the students been white
males pilfering a black student newspaper. Would he have agonized,
"Two important university values now stand in conflict: diversity and
open expression," as he did in this instance? I am happy
to
take bets. It is
worth remembering, too, that this is the man who in 1990 denounced
the attempt
to
stop federal funding of exhibitions of work by Robert
Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. "I get very nervous when fundamen–
tal principles are at stake," Mr. Hackney preened. Ah, yes, supporting
pornographic and blasphemous trash with taxpayers' money is a
