Fellow Patriot: The voluntary financial generosity of supporters like you keeps our hard-hitting analysis coming. Please support the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you for your support! —Nate Jackson, Managing Editor

November 23, 2015

A New College President’s First Address

The recrudescence of college radicalism over recent weeks has been highlighted by stunningly craven responses by college administrators and presidents, bringing into bold relief the suicidal impulses of America’s supposed academic elite. However, let us imagine, as a thought experiment, what might happen if a new college president with a different set of priorities was vaulted into office, say, an interim-president charged with the task of dealing with contumacious crowds bent on taking over the university. As a public service, I offer the following comments for this individual’s first address to fellow administrators, faculty, and students.

The recrudescence of college radicalism over recent weeks has been highlighted by stunningly craven responses by college administrators and presidents, bringing into bold relief the suicidal impulses of America’s supposed academic elite. However, let us imagine, as a thought experiment, what might happen if a new college president with a different set of priorities was vaulted into office, say, an interim-president charged with the task of dealing with contumacious crowds bent on taking over the university. As a public service, I offer the following comments for this individual’s first address to fellow administrators, faculty, and students:

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I stand before you with deep humility in facing the challenges that confront us all, along with the understanding that our mutual undertaking should be considered in terms that are nothing less than the preservation of our integrity as an institution of higher learning in America. That means that we are committed to the pursuit of truth, honesty, civility, and the bequeathing of our country’s matchless heritage of freedom to future generations. I understand further that many of you do not share these goals, and with such individuals in mind especially, I state with the firmest resolve that you do not belong here. Indeed, likely you do not belong at any academic institution that takes its mission seriously. However, beginning right now, we must assert that this university’s ideals will claim our sincerest loyalty. Again, if you cannot contribute to our academic community — for it is a community of scholarship, teaching, and learning that binds us together — then your presence here will do neither us nor you any good. Thus you must depart these hallowed halls.

I recognize fully that I am thrust into a position of great turmoil, which has spread to many other academic institutions throughout the land. Frankly, the reasons for this are no mystery to me. I will not speculate on how many administrators, faculty, and students have been infected with the spiritual bacillus of Marxist cultural criticism, which commands its acolytes to worship at the altar of race, class, and gender, but considering the phalanx of hyphenated “isms” that march through lists of student protestors’ demands like a regiment of storm troopers, one may safely assume that this number is rather high.

Certainly, many of you have succumbed to the call of this unholy trinity, including some faculty cancelling classes, issuing sympathetic messages to the disaffected, or joining protesters on their marches to chaos and nihilism. Indeed, any observer cannot fail to note, with the deepest chagrin and perhaps a smidgeon of humor, those among you who blanketed our grounds with your bodies and placards, and smothered our speech with shouts and demands, have also complained that the recent murdering spree by Islamist radicals in Paris have drawn unwarranted attention from your presumed sufferings.

Apart from displaying to our country and the world your isolation from reality, you have perhaps unintentionally brought into bold relief a very important point. And it is this: Dealing with serious problems as fully as possible requires addressing root causes, a sentiment with which you claim great familiarity. I must say I completely agree. We should strive to deal with root causes to overcome our current tribulations, keeping in mind, however, that some of these causes, such as your upbringing and previous educational experience, are outside this institution’s realm of control.

But we shall do what we can, beginning by taking the following steps. First, the university will no longer fund or support any student organization based on race, class, gender, ethnicity, or some supposed set of grievances. This means that dozens of student groups, some issuing from a menagerie of exotic imaginations, will be on their own. Second, at no time will demonstrations that halt or disrupt academic functions at the university or threaten the safety or lives of our students be tolerated. Aggressive mob actions that break the law will result in the perpetrators being arrested, removed from the campus, and discharged from the university. This includes all students, faculty and administrators. Third, all academic majors beginning with the word “Studies” will be abolished and their faculty dismissed. Perhaps no greater service can be carried out for the devotees in such majors, since this action surely prevents them from acquiring useless degrees frequently based on preposterous ideas.

Fourth, the administration will strive mightily to fulfill the diversity and inclusion criteria of our university by hiring more faculty members committed to the values of truth, honesty, civility, and freedom. This will result in the addition of scholars who espouse ideals on which our country was based, classical liberalism, constitutionalism, and all the freedoms those principles entail. Without question, such initiatives will bolster our standing throughout the country, a goal with which I’m sure you will agree.

Fifth, the administration and board of trustees will not entertain any complaints based on so-called “micro-aggressions,” or “hurt feelings,” or the failure to provide “trigger warnings” or “safe spaces,” all of which are expressions of individuals too immature and pusillanimous to be at this university. Finally, the concept of a “free speech zone,” is abhorrent to the First Amendment to the Constitution, and indeed, to the foundations of this country. The whole university is a free speech zone and will be defended vigorously.

I conclude by pledging myself to conduct the duties of the office of university president to the fullest of my abilities. I shall work on your behalf for the betterment of your souls, the enrichment of your learning, and the enhancement of your life’s many prospects. I shall strive every day to succeed in the grandest, most noble endeavor any nation can have for its citizens, and that is to impart to our sons and daughters the highest ideals to which we aspire. For it is a civilization we are bequeathing, not just a list of fresh resumes. It is to these commitments I pledge my life, my work, and my sacred honor.

Thank you very much.

Your New University President.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.