At many of our colleges and universities these days, you’ll find a cadre of hard-core “progressives” who don’t act like scholars when it comes to disagreement, but more like an enraged mob. I’m old enough to remember when leftists used to try to convince people they were right, but now most of them have decided that power is preferable to argument.
In today’s Martin Center article, I write about a furor that erupted earlier this year at Arizona State University. The T. W. Lewis Center for Personal Development had been on campus for several years, funded by Thomas Lewis. The Center’s purpose was to help students get ready for life after college, and it planned to host a program with several speakers who’d address how to achieve health, wealth, and happiness.
That wouldn’t have caused trouble but for the fact that two of the three speakers invited are men hated by the Left because they don’t agree with its transformational agenda for America — Charlie Kirk and Dennis Prager. They were denounced as “purveyors of hate” and advocates of “white supremacy,” even though they weren’t going to address any controversial issues. Faculty members told students not to attend, and students who wanted to go expressed fear that they’d be penalized if they were identified as disobediently listening to Kirk and Prager.
After the event, Arizona State officials fired the woman who had been the executive director of the Lewis Center, and also the woman who had been running the venue where the event was held. Political retaliation against innocent people, pure and simple.
All of that caused Lewis to tell ASU that he was withdrawing his support.
Thanks to political zealotry, the students have lost a valuable resource, but Lewis has learned a bitter lesson.
Editor’s note: This post originally misidentified Thomas Lewis and the T. W. Lewis Center.