Thread: Donors to Colleges: Be Careful about Values of School

HIGHER EDUCATION
Donors, don't let colleges snub values

WALTER E. WILLIAMS
James W. McGlothlin, chairman and chief executive of The United Co. of Bristol, Va., and a former member of The College of William & Mary's Board of Visitors and a longtime donor, withheld his $12 million pledge to the college. He made his decision because of the actions taken by Gene Nichol, the college president, who ordered the removal of the cross from Wren Chapel. The cross had been on the chapel altar since around 1940. Nichol's justification was that he wanted to make the chapel welcoming to non-Christians.

That's a lie. Nichol was a chapter president of the American Civil Liberties Union for North Florida, and an ACLU board member in North Carolina and Colorado. Nichol's actions simply spared them a costly court battle to remove the religious symbol from William & Mary's Wren Chapel.

Nichol's actions caused a storm of controversy that he probably didn't anticipate. Caving in to the pressure, on March 6, he agreed to return the cross to Wren Chapel.

The Wren Chapel cross issue is simply the tip of a much larger problem. For decades, college administrators and professors have sanctioned or participated in an attack on traditional American values. They've denied campus access to military recruiters, promoted socialism and attacked capitalism, and instituted race and sex quotas in admissions and in the awarding of scholarships. Despite this attack, taxpayers and private donors have been generous, pouring billions upon billions of dollars into institutions that often hold a generalized contempt for their values.

McGlothlin is to be congratulated for his courage in taking a stand against this liberal attack on American values. Other wealthy donors ought to emulate McGlothlin's courage by withholding their donations to colleges that foster or sanction attacks on traditional American values and decency. Taxpayers ought to rebel as well by pressuring their legislators.

Many college benefactors fondly recall their experiences at their alma maters some 20, 30 or 40 years ago. Often, what they remember bears little or no resemblance to what goes on at campuses today. Benefactors can become more informed by visits to the college's Web site to discover whether there are activities offensive to their values. If there's an office of diversity, it strongly suggests the college is practicing some form of race or sex discrimination.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education provides information about colleges that have "politically correct" speech codes that suppress debate. The Young America's Foundation publishes information about inane courses at some of our colleges, such as UCLA's "Queer Musicology" or Johns Hopkins' "Mail Order Brides."

Some colleges have brazenly violated donor intent. Because they violated donor intent, Boston College, USC, UCLA, Harvard and Yale have been forced to return multimillion-dollar gifts. It's high time that donors large and small summon some of McGlothlin's courage and hold colleges accountable to standards of decency and honesty.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Williams, a syndicated columnist and professor of economics at George Mason University, at wwilliams@gmu.edu.

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/su ... 944064.htm

Nichol's justification was that he wanted to make the chapel welcoming to non-Christians.

That coming from a member of the Anti-Christian Liars Union---hah! Last time I checked, religious icons were the symbols allowed within sanctioned denominational places of WORSHIP!

Now try to get the ACLU to sue churches for harboring Illegals, and see what their response is!