The campus comes to Congress m.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/…
On campus, all can present equally valid narratives. What privileges one story over another is not necessarily any semblance to reality, at least as established by evidence and facts.
Instead, powerful victimizers supposedly “construct” truths based on their own self-interests. As a result, self-described victims of historical biases are under no obligation to play by what they consider to be rigged rules of facts, evidence or testimony.
This dynamic explains why Sen. Cory Booker, New Jersey Democrat, insisted that Mrs. Ford told “her truth.” In other words, evidence was not so relevant.
There was little interest in discovering the ancient idea of the Truth. To do that would have required the messy work of taxing the memories of teenage behavior nearly four decades prior.
Truth-finding would have required difficult, time-honored examinations of physical evidence, the testimony of witnesses, and even unpleasant cross-examinations about the time and place of the allegations.
Feelings might have been hurt. Motives might have been questioned, as they are under constitutional norms of due process.
Also on the campus, the race and gender of people now increasingly determine who we are.
Republican senators were repeatedly written off by critics as “old white men,” not unique individuals who might be disinterested or biased, fair or prejudicial.
Kavanaugh was largely assumed guilty, in part for once being a privileged white kid who had gone to a prep school.
Kavanaugh was largely assumed guilty, in part for once being a privileged white kid who had gone to a prep school.
Meanwhile, Mr. Booker, by virtue of not being old and white, was considered a credible senatorial examiner. No one cared that Mr. Booker had once invented stories about an imaginary friend named “T-Bone.”
Such blanket race- and age-based stereotyping was not even consistent. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, is 72 and white.
Yet given his progressive politics, no one dismissed him on the basis of gender and age, much less for being a serial fabricator who concocted false stories of serving in Vietnam.
The Senate also adopted the modern university’s doctrine of self-censorship, no-go zones and safe spaces.
Given issues of gender and the university concept that accusations of sexual assault inherently are exempt from constitutional protections of due process, Mrs. Ford was more or less excused from normally tough cross-examination.
Swarming and shouting down those who hold different views in order to shame and intimidate them is part and parcel of the modern university.
Now, we are seeing such campus street theater in Congress. During a break in the hearings, female protesters cornered Sen. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, in an elevator and screamed in his face.
The psychodrama worked — just as it usually does on campus. A shaken and flushed Mr. Flake soon backed down from his stated intention of voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh.
Campuses are no longer out-of-touch ivory towers. Their creed is now beginning to run the country, which is frightening.
