Civilization Is History at Yale

Yale announced last week that it will stop teaching its famous survey course, “Introduction to Art History: Renaissance to the Present.” Taught for decades by Vincent Scully, one of Yale’s most celebrated professors, the course was a riveting introduction to pulse of humanism.

It is being cashiered for all the usual reasons. Its focus is too white, too European, too male, too “problematic,” as Tim Barringer, chairman of the art history department, puts it. Mr. Barringer will substitute a course that challenges such Eurocentrism and promises to be very up-to-date. Mr. Barrginer says he’ll introduce a “global” perspective. Naturally, he writes, the course will consider art in relation to “questions of gender, class and ‘race.’ ” (Why the scare quotes around “race”? Is today one of those days when race is only a social construct?) It will also ponder art’s “involvement with Western capitalism.”

Globalism, gender, class, race, capitalism. Has Mr. Barringer neglected any trendy concern? How about the Greta Thunberg gambit? On it! Art’s “relationship with climate change will be a ‘key theme,’ ” the Yale Daily News reports.

The Daily News adds that the removal of “Introduction to Art History” is “the latest response to student uneasiness over an idealized Western ‘canon’—a product of an overwhelmingly white, straight, European and male cadre of artists.”

It is also yet another sign that Yale has succumbed to a life-draining decadence. A decadent institution isn’t necessarily impoverished or licentious. Rather, it is desiccated because it has lost the life-giving pith of its purpose. To a casual observer, a decadent institution may look healthy. The buildings may be expensive, well-kept and plentiful. Tidy, well-heeled people may bustle about. But the animating élan has evaporated. A decadent institution is one that has repudiated itself.

All in all, I'm glad that I never attended Yale, Harvard or any of the other "elite" universities that are busy committing intellectual and political suicide.

The political philosopher James Burnham once observed that “suicide is probably more frequent than murder as the end phase of a civilization.” As Yale has been demonstrating for some years now, elite institutions are eager to take the lead.

The Mental Reign of Terror

Jon Miltimore argues that Yale is becoming a kind of jail which hands out professional credentials to those hardy enough to serve out their term. Until then its inmates should be careful not to make waves. The wardens in Miltmore's story are college administrators who've created a kind of politically correct kingdom where they -- not the professors -- are the rulers; where conformity not inquiry, is the most highly valued virtue.

What does this kind of bullying remind you of? To me and many others, it's the Red Guards.

The Chinese Cultural Revolution is now forgotten history. Yet important thing about the "Red Guard" movement was how artificial it was. It was astroturf all the way. Behind the youthful Chinese faces was the aged figure of Mao Tse Tung and his political cabal. Like some malevolent spirit he projected his voice through a million gullible dummies carefully nurtured on propaganda and paranoia.

And this is where it started, in homes like this in Venice, California.

Documentary on Yale Reveals How Scary U.S. Campuses Have Become

Sadness, shame and blame at Yale over First Amendment repeal video

Members of the Yale University community on Thursday responded with a mix of embarrassment, sadness and literal disbelief to a viral video showing students there freely signing a petition that calls for the repeal of the First Amendment.

“It numbs the mind that dozens of Yale students could sign a petition to revoke the First Amendment,” freshman Grant Richardson wrote FoxNews.com in an email. “Besides the fact that the First Amendment lists the most fundamentally important rights we hold as Americans, it is rather embarrassing to think Yalies could not see the irony that they were petitioning away – their right to petition.”

And here's the reaction from a Yale Professor, which explains why Yale students will enthusiastically destroy free speech, a free press, the free exercise of religion, the right to freely assemble and the right to petition.

A member of the Yale Law School faculty also responded to the video, and wasn’t happy with what he saw.

“It’s a sad commentary on the present state of public opinion,” said Professor Bruce Ackerman. “This is a moment at which fundamental principles are under assault from both the left and the right.”

“The collection of 50 Yalie signatures for a petition to repeal the First Amendment is a sad commentary on the present state of public opinion.”

But Ackerman said he also felt the First Amendment debate wasn’t as important as more pressing issues.

“It does not remotely pose the same danger as the support of all Republican candidates, with the exception of Rand Paul, for President Obama’s unilateral war against ISIS in plain violation of the Constitution,” Ackerman said.

That part of the professor’s response didn’t sit well with Horowitz.

“This is exactly part of the problem. Why would Yale students, or university students anywhere in this country, feel a fidelity to our fundamental beliefs, when their professors try to shoehorn in anti-American sentiment at every opportunity?” he told FoxNews.com.

And, of course, the same people who defend the abortionists selling baby parts at Planned Parenthood abortion clinics have come out from under their rocks and claim that the video is doctored.

Yale University’s spokesman had a very different reaction to the video, essentially saying he did not believe the accuracy of what he saw.

“There are a number of heavily edited prank videos like this one circulating lately in which someone surreptitiously records people while pretending to support a position that they actually oppose, and trying to get the individuals they speak with to agree with them,” Tom Conroy wrote in an email. “I have to acknowledge that I don’t take them seriously as an accurate representation of what every person interviewed or shown in the videos believes.”

In the video, in which he is shown clearly explaining to several students that the petition calls for repeal of the First Amendment, Horowitz said he was able to quickly collect nearly 60 signatures in less than an hour. Among those who signed were students who appeared to enthusiastically support the abolition of their First Amendment rights.

“I think it’s really awesome that you’re out here,” one man says in the video.

Yale fail: Ivy leaguers sign 'petition' to repeal First Amendment

Looking to understand just how controversial the debate over free speech on our college campuses really is, filmmaker and satirist Ami Horowitz recently traveled to Yale University, one of our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning, to speak directly to students.

“I decided to take this campus free speech debate to its logical conclusion,” said Horowitz, who asked students if they’d sign a petition calling for an outright repeal of the First Amendment. “The result was this unbelievable display of total stupidity.”

In fact, Horowitz discovered a solid majority of the students asked willingly signed the petition, with several expressing their enthusiastic approval for his anti-First Amendment efforts.

Yale's Student Organizations, But Liberal Nuts Still Think It's Not Diverse Enough

And they're right! There is not on organization that specifically conservative.

From NR (Jonah Goldberg)  - read the whole thing!

-A Learning and Interactive Vietnamese Experience
-Asian American Students Alliance
-Asian American Studies Task Force
-Association of Native Americans at Yale, Undergraduate Organization
-India at Yale
-IvyQ (as in “Queer”)
-Japanese Undergraduate Students at Yale
-Latina Women at Yale
-Liberal Party
-Reproductive Rights Action League at Yale
-Sex and Sexuality Week Planning Board
-Undergraduate First Generation Low Income Partnership
-Women in Physics
-Women’s Leadership Initiative at Yale
-Yale Queer+Asian
-Yale Urban Collective
-The Black Solidarity Conference at Yale
-The Yale Women’s Center
-Yale Southeast Asian Movement
-Q (again, as in Queer) Magazine
-Alliance for Southeast Asian Students
-Arab Students Association
-Association of Salvadoreñas at Yale Undergraduate
-Black Student Alliance at Yale
-Brazil Club
-Canadian Students’ Association at Yale [Talk about safe spaces!]
-Chinese American Students’ Association
-Chinese Undergraduate Students at Yale
-Club Colombia
-Club of Argentine Students at Yale
-Club of Romanian Students at Yale
-Cuban-American Undergraduate Students’ Association
-Despierta Boricua, the Puerto Rican Student Organization at Yale
-DisOrient
-Eritrean and Ethiopian Student Association at Yale
-In the Q[as in Queer]loset
-Japanese American Students Union
-Kasama: The Filipino Club at Yale
-Korean American Students at Yale
-La Revolucion
-La Societe Francaise
-Lo Stivale
-Malaysian and Singaporean Association
-Organization for Racial and Ethnic Openness
-Russian Cultural Club
-Sisters of All Nations
-South Asian Society
-Southeastern European Society
-Student Association of Thais at Yale
-Students of Nigeria
-Swiss Students and Affiliates at Yale
-Taiwanese American Society
-The German Society of Undergraduates at Yale University
-The Polish Students’ Society of Yale College
-Vietnamese Student Association
-Yale African Students Association
-Yale Black Women’s Coalition
-Yale British Undergraduates
-Yale Caribbean Students’ Organization
-Yale College Black Men’s Students Union
-Yale College Student Czech and Slovak Society
-Yale Dominican Student Association
-Yale European Undergraduates
-Yale Friends of Turkey
-Yale Hawaii Institute
-Yale Kala
-Yale LGBTQ Cooperative
-Yale Mexican Student Organization
-Yale Scandinavian Society
-Yale Undergraduate Portuguese Association
-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ Activism Collective
-Margin: Student Perspectives from the Left
-Middle Eastern Resolution through Education, Action & Dialogue
-Party of the Left
-Students for Justice in Palestine
-Yale NAACP