Last week, the president of WSU Tech, and affiliate of Wichita State University, announced that Ivanka Trump would speak at the school’s commencement — a virtual ceremony. Some students, faculty members, and alums objected.
WSU’s president responded as college presidents do. She decided that Ivanka would not speak at the virtual ceremony. Instead, her address would be available online.
Ivanka posted it on Twitter. She included a reference to the “cancel culture,” of which WSU’s actions are an example.
Fortunately, the matter did not end there. Donors to Wichita State, including some major ones, expressed displeasure with WSU’s treatment of Ms. Trump. For example, the CFO and executive vice president of Koch Industries said that, in light of that treatment, he has not decided whether to return to the WSU Foundation board. Another prominent supporter called for the firing of WSU’s president.
The Kansas Board of Regents called an emergency meeting and went into “executive session.” After the meeting, the board issued a statement expressing support for free speech, diversity, and inclusion.
It decided not to fire WSU’s president, notwithstanding her obvious lack of commitment to these values. In turn, she issued a statement giving lip service to them.
I suspect that this “resolution” will satisfy Wichita State’s donors. Whether it should is another question.
At this point in the descent of nearly all American colleges and universities, I wonder why any conservative would donate a penny to almost any of these institutions. Such donations subsidize the indoctrination of students by those who dislike conservatives and despise our values. The effects of this leftist indoctrination are there for all to see. In my view, they are undermining America.
We conservatives should do our best to “defund” the nation’s colleges and universities until such time as they demonstrate a true commitment to free speech and viewpoint diversity, and cease the systematic leftist indoctrination of students.
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