At COTTonLINE we write about college/university matters from time to time, since we spent a mostly happy career in that cloistered environment. And I've waited to comment on the President's order requiring higher ed institutions to protect free speech, including speech that's unpopular with some or most students and faculty.
The New York Times has an article showing how the presidential order can make life easier for higher ed administrators because it gives them cover when victim group activists protest some speaker (or professor) who states something they view as "insensitive." The president or provost will point to this requirement and say something like "I sympathize with your concerns but the Federals insist I not interfere; my hands are tied."
The article does a better-than-average job of describing how victim group activists have college administrators over a barrel, and enjoy pressuring them. The new free speech requirement will make meeting unwritten minority enrollment "quotas" marginally more difficult to accomplish.
So be it. The game is worth the candle.
