Righten the ivory tower with free-speech power

Even the uneducated should have learned by now that U.S. college faculties lean to the left.

That ivory-tower tilt isn't confined to Berkeley (Calif.), Madison (Wis.), Boulder (Colo.), and Eugene (Ore.). In conservative Greenville (S.C.), 222 "members of the Furman community" have signed a letter proclaiming "We Object" to the May 31 graduation speaker — President George W. Bush.

Republican Gov. Mark Sanford, a Furman grad, helped land Bush. That move was unanimously approved by senior-class leadership, according to school spokesman Vince Moore, who told me Wednesday that roughly half of the "We Object" signatures came from current faculty, the rest from spouses, retired faculty, alumni and current students. Among the "actions of the Bush administration" the letter condemns:

"Claiming a linkage between Iraq and 9-11, and exaggerating the threat of weapons of mass destruction to justify a new and morally questionable strategy of 'pre-emptive warfare' against Iraq — a country that did not attack us and posed no immediate international threat." ... "Classifying war prisoners as 'detained nonmilitary combatants' to permit their detention and interrogation in violation of our own laws and standards of human decency." ... "Installing lobbyists for the coal, timber and mining industries as the chief officials in charge of managing and protecting our public lands."

Picky, picky, picky.

Space limitations preclude printing the full letter (or is it a manifesto?), which ends: "Because we love this country and the ideals it stands for, we accept our civic responsibility to speak out against these actions that violate American values."

Some Furman folks object to "We Object." When Taylor Hall, chairman of Furman's and the state's College Republicans, told me Wednesday that "nearly all" Furman students deem that letter an inappropriate intrusion, he wasn't just speaking for conservatives:

"I've spoken with several of my liberal and Democratic friends, and they feel the same way. This is not about him trying to get votes. This is about him coming here to recognize the seniors and their accomplishments."

Keep in mind that Bush isn't running for office this year — and that John McCain is running away from him.

That, however, didn't stop bitter animus against a lame duck from butting into Furman's graduation. Faculty members even launched a series of lectures and panel discussions "assessing" the Bush presidency, including one coming up Tuesday on "The Question of Torture."

Hall: "We definitely respect the right of everybody at Furman to express their political opinions, but we're disappointed that the faculty decided to politicize this. I would hope that any other president would be treated with more respect than this."

The junior from Knoxville, Tenn., also hopes that for his graduation next year, Democrat Richard Riley, another Furman grad who became S.C. governor (and later U.S. secretary of education), "can get Bill Clinton in here."

Remember when teachers tried to keep rude students in line instead of vice versa?

Then again, this free country thrives on a free market of not just goods and services but ideas. So should institutions of higher learning. Furman has offered a wide range of ideas this semester, from abrasive right-wing provocateur Ann Coulter to ruthless Democratic strategist James Carville and beyond.

OK, so the speaker list will list heavily leftward again on May 28 when journalist/author Chris Hedges, in the keynote address of that panel series, expounds on "The Corporate State and the Subversion of Democracy." Among his books: "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America."

Gee, and Furman was a Baptist school until 1992.

Closer to home, Angela Davis wowed a big crowd at the College of Charleston last month, denouncing capitalism for an $8,000 fee.

How many professors spouting Marxist claptrap endure subsistence lifestyles on collective farms?

How best to counter academia's delusions of "progressive" superiority?

Not by repealing the First Amendment. Let campus Nanny Statists corner that market with oppressive "speech codes."

Not by retreating from the ideological fray. To borrow from Bush: "Bring it on."

But for true conservatives, that shouldn't require letting the left corner the market on wariness about "pre-emptive warfare."

The right course against the higher-education intelligentsia's knee-jerk aversion to conservative common sense is respectful, well-informed debate. Beat strength in numbers with strength in logic.

Former Furman Paladin all-Southern Conference defensive end David Shi, president of his alma mater since 1994, struck an apt balance to the Bush-visit furor in this conclusion to a written statement:

"How well a university balances competing ideas is an index to its health. How well a college channels controversy into opportunities for learning is a measure of its maturity. Controversy, in other words, can be very instructive."

Instructive lessons from this Furman flap:

College professors have a free-speech right to propagandize for the left — and to say "We Object" to graduation speakers.

And college students have a free-speech right to freshly challenge their professors' stale left-wing dogma — and to tell them to mind their manners.

Frank Wooten is associate editor of The Post and Courier. His e-mail is wooten@postandcourier.com.