Mary Grabar, Unlimited

Insults are now allowed at Georgia Tech! This as a result of a lawsuit brought on by two conservative students, one Christian and one Jewish. The headline in yesterday's paper says it all.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/atlanta/stories/0816mettech.html

The story in today's AJC tells about the threats that one of these students who brought the suit against speech codes, Ruth Malhotra, gets; among them are death, choking, and having acid thrown on her. Malhotra is Indian and her campus mailbox has been stuffed with Twinkies, the message being that she is yellow on the outside and white on the inside.

Is there any connection between the way the story is presented and the way students who resist speech codes are treated? Is there any connection between the indoctrination of students from kindergarten on up and their attitude towards such codes that give them a false sense of their own virtue? What about the fact that most teachers are hardly objective when it comes to discussing "diverse" religious perspectives?

The answer is that Christianity and Judaism are so maligned is classrooms that no one even notices it any more. The answer is that if you challenge the status quo on campus you will be attacked. In the late 90s I wrote an editorial in support of teaching classic authors, like Plato and Shakespeare. I received anonymous typed letters in my university mailbox.

But this is not a new story, really. Insults have been allowed for decades. They have been allowed against Christians, Jews, and conservatives. But no one saw them as "insults." They have been the curriculum.