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Posted on 25th August 2014 |
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The people described in these stories, from the BBC and from The Atlantic, really don't deserve to have places at university. What they describe is a growing trend in education in the USA. The BBC story covers the case of students at Duke University who refused to read an assigned book because they feel they "would have to compromise [their] personal Christian moral beliefs to read it" (the book deals fairly explicitly with homosexual relationships). The story in The Atlantic, which is rather more comprehensive, talks about law students at Harvard asking professors not to teach rape law, and also describes the lengths that professors now need to go to to avoid offending their students (and to avoid the resulting complaints). I have serious problems with both the above examples:
Bear in mind that we are not talking about dodgy third rate universities here. According to this review, Harvard ranks second in the USA, and Duke is at number 8; these are the places where future leaders of government and business are educated. To some extent I blame the universities for failing to enforce standards of education: censorship has no place in education. Time to stop coddling these students. Maybe they should be thrown out, and their places given to someone who would properly appreciate the privilege of a good education. |