Dean's Address

How many of you remember your first happy days as a freshman in college? The surroundings were impressive, excitement was in the air, you faced new challenges, met new people, and perhaps looked forward to next week’s football game. The 17 and 18 year old freshmen at the University of New Mexico in September of 2001 were the same as freshmen have been for decades. But this was a different day — this was September 11, 2001 and by the time these freshmen reached their morning history class, they had already seen on television or been told about the carnage and horror of Manhattan, Washington, D.C. and the fields of Pennsylvania. The debacle of Pearl Harbor was only distant history to these youngsters, who had never seen, perceived, nor imagined what had occurred earlier that morning. In the class, these youngsters looked to history Professor Richard Berthold for guidance and knowledge. What they got instead was Berthold’s declaration that “Whoever blows up the Pentagon gets my vote.”

Acknowledging that Berthold had a right to say what he did, the Administration cited the professor’s gross violation of University practices, principles, and behavior as out-lined in a clearly written faculty booklet. You see, there are other ways to deal with unacceptable conduct. A letter of reprimand was placed in Berthold’s file, he was prohibited from teaching any further freshmen classes, and his tenure was placed under immediate review. To quote my Texas friends, Berthold should have been “shown the concrete.”

In the past 25 years, we have become demographically more complex than ever before. Women are achieving their long deserved goals, and people of every creed, color, and religion are attending our schools, colleges, and universities. Such is the way it is and the way it will be.

There is no surer way to create victimhood than openly to tell someone that he or she is a victim. Yet, on campuses from one coast to the other, new students with different backgrounds are being told at orientation sessions that they may be victims of cruelty, insults or other misconduct.

They are told how and where to report such incidents.

In many orientation booklets, this same admonition is clearly present. As the result of this, what we have on our campuses is separateness — and an “us versus them” frame of mind. Depending upon racial origin, skin color, gender, religion, or sexual preference, groups are breaking off into separate entities, with separate housing, separate courses, separate social events, and in some cases, separate commencement exercises. The educators call this “multi -cultural.” I call it destructive.

On our buildings, in our schoolhouses, on the sides of our trucks, in our newspapers, and on our storefronts, is the ubiquitous statement — UNITED WE STAND. Why in the world, on campus or off, can’t we live up to this pronouncement? I submit to you that to insult, mistreat, make fun of, or otherwise abuse another person because of skin color, gender, racial origin, religion, or biological choice, is ignorant, wrong, and mean spirited. There is quite enough hatred far beyond our shores that we must not tolerate it here.

I want to speak to you about an insidious doctrine that’s been with us only since recently. It has a high-minded “Emily Post” type ring to it, but it is mischievous, dangerous, has no meaning, save and except the meaning that its proponent chooses. That doctrine is the idea of “political correctness,” and these are some of its dark characteristics. It is oppressive. It dilutes courage. It offers safe harbor to timid school administrators and frightened school board members. It brings with it no meaningful or objective standard. It allows one to look the other way when an obvious injustice is being done. It is driven by expedience and fear. Finally, it reeks with arrogance.

Here are some examples of “political correctness” in action. A six year old boy steals a kiss from his little play-mate on the playground, and is suspended for eight days. An old Washington Redskin linebacker is presented by his wife with a custom license plate that proudly identifies him as “Redskin.” The California Department of Motor Vehicles takes the plates away from him. The plight of teacher Christine Pelton of Piper, Kansas. She requires a written biology essay which counts for a large percentage of the grade. Twenty-six of her students plagiarized directly and verbatim from the Internet. Twenty-six F’s are given in return. The principal upholds Ms. Pelton; the superintendent upholds Ms. Pelton; but the local school board reverses her decision as being too harsh. Votes are hard to come by, you know. Ms. Pelton quits the next day. An Orange Coast College Professor is suspended and punished before a hearing is conducted. The teacher at Palisades High School who awards F’s to those senior students who would rather surf than come to class, is reversed by the school board. Mustn’t mess up those 4.0 grade point averages! Lastly, city planners in Berkeley, California and in Ann Arbor, Michigan are frantic and scratching their heads as to whether to call the passage way into the underground drainage and sewer system a “manhole” or a “personhole.”

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, I’ll say it again; educated men perplexed as to whether to call an access duct a “manhole” or “person-hole.” I’d like to summon a large panel. In that panel I would like to include every lady in this big room. I would like to invite Margaret Thatcher, Condoleeza Rice, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, from a district nearby, Justice Sandra O’Connor, Justice Ruth Ginsberg, Ann Richards, two or three women fighter pilots from the carrier Stennis on the Arabian Sea, who take their lives in their hands every night when they take off for missions over Afghanistan. I’d like to assemble this panel, tell them what this vexing engineering problem is, and then let them tell me who gives a damn!!

In my remarks this morning I may have trod upon some sensitive territory. I hope very much that I have not misused this podium or this privilege in which to politicize. What makes this Academy great is that we are professional men and women all of whom took the same oath, and each of whom is dedicated to justice. We don’t care what the other colleagues’ politics are.

A man summed all of this up more eloquently than I. His name is Heston: “Americans know something without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood, and right from wrong — and they don’t like it. If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist.”

Ladies and gentlemen, I have drawn a very exaggerated parallel between the multiple instances of inhumanity in the twentieth century and the academic irregularities, which we face today. But in both, I see a common three-way thread. I see the same thread that runs through the totalitarianism of which I spoke earlier — the suppression of free expression, the minimization or destruction of the past, and the tampering or compromise with the rule of law.

What to do about all this? The school boards of which I speak are your school boards. Their members are garnered or rejected by your votes. The errant, confused administrators and, in some cases, professors, are compensated with your money. We have ways in which to do some-thing about all of the things that I have raised.

In the eighteenth century there lived a courageous man — once imprisoned and twice exiled for expressing controversial views about his government. Francois Voltaire said: “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” 

Thank you for this privilege.