Win the Battle, ...

There is a long article about the pervasiveness of multiculturalism in academia over at National Journal that is well worth the read. The following passage is particularly relevant in light of the recent apparent victory against the left at the University of Delaware, which ceased a dorm-centered multiculturalist indoctrination program after the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education exposed it to national scrutiny (and outrage):

Despite a succession of court decisions striking down university speech codes, they re-emerged thinly disguised as rules to prevent and punish "harassment," defined to include any speech deemed offensive by minorities, women, gays, or other preferred groups.

It is exactly as I said upon first learning of FIRE's success:

I see this victory as temporary. UD will doubtless let the heat die down and reinstitute as much of this as they feel they can get away with when they can.

FIRE is watching this and this will slow them down, but the real way to stop this is to get more and more academics to oppose multiculturalism.

Just as we are learning abroad that one cannot force people whose fundamental ideas are incompatible with individual rights to adopt Western forms of government in any meaningful way, we are learning it here. The multiculturalists see American society as "racist" and its institutions as tools of oppression, which they will attempt to subvert or destroy outright in the name of their code of morality. And in the meantime, they are attempting to make more of themselves by using our educational institutions to indoctrinate the young.

Far be it from me to detract from FIRE's outstanding work, but there is also an intellectual component to the war for freedom that we ignore at the peril of making their heroic efforts ultimately futile. Opposing the actions that the bad ideas of the multiculturalists inspire them to do is not enough. Those of us who value freedom have no choice -- if we are to gain more of that value or keep what we have -- but to work to understand and promote the ideas that make freedom possible. Otherwise, who will understand what freedom is, or why it is good, or even that there is an alternative to egalitarianism?

-- CAV