Hamilton College Says “No” to Alexander HamiltonMaimon Schwarzschild

The academic malevolence that helped fuel the Duke “rape” case is hardly unique to Duke.  Much the same political religion – and the same bullying, Red Guard style – pervades liberal arts education across the country.  The New Criterion reports on the latest from Hamilton College in upstate New York.   Hamilton College was founded in 1793 and for nearly two centuries it was a staid but good-quality liberal arts college.  But over the past decade or two, it became better known for hijinks involving Ward Churchill (the faux-Indian leftie who cheered the 9/11 attacks), porn stars lecturing on sex toys, and a grim on-campus politburo called the “Kirkland Project”.

It seems that an alumnus recently gave the college 3.6 million dollars to fund an Alexander Hamilton Center for the Study of Western Civilization.  It would have been dedicated to promoting excellence in scholarship through the study of freedom, democracy, and capitalism as these ideas were developed and institutionalized in the United States and within the larger tradition of Western culture.

Now the grim-left faculty and administration at Hamilton College have howled it down.  It won’t happen.  The donor withdrew his gift. 

“The real losers, of course, are the students: this year it costs about $45,000 to attend Hamilton. For that amount of money, parents can rest assured their children will be effectively insulated from any opinion not sanctioned by Hamilton s left-wing, activist faculty.”   

Read the whole, sad, but well-told story here.

And if you are considering contributing money to higher education, think very carefully about whether you want to give unrestricted money to today’s academic administrators.  Is there a better alternative?  There is.  The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a well-run, responsible, and honest way to donate to higher education.  ACTA will make sure that your contribution goes to educational programs that are worthwhile: not to promoting more of the pathology that infects Duke University, Hamilton College, and so much of the “higher education” industry in this country.