Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

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Academic. Honestly.

Friday July 18, 2003

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From Mount Airy, North Carolina
Virginia Foxx for Congress Fundraiser

Here was my day yesterday:

6:15 AM Fox & Friends
8:00 AM North Carolina GOP Breakfast, Raleigh
12:00 Noon University of North Carolina College Republicans, Chapel Hill
6:00 PM Foxx for Congress Fund Raiser, Mt. Airy

Dear Mr. Mullings. We took a vote. We are even LESS interested in your daily schedule than we were about your having lost your luggage in Kuwait - if that is possible.

First of all, my luggage was found. It reached the Kuwait airport the very day I left. It is winging its way back to me as we speak. Second, some people think this stuff IS interesting. All right, maybe not interesting, exactly, but I wanted to established that I spent some time in Chapel Hill and ran into a young man who is doing something important.

The University of North Carolina as something it calls the Summer Reading Program for incoming freshmen.

This is not, strictly speaking, a reading list because there is only one book to read.

The book for the 2003 program is called "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America."

It is (according to the poster I stole from the wall of the student center) a "direct, vivid and engaging account of the desperate struggles for survival on minimum wage."

Getting the picture?

Here's more: Students are urged to "Question the political, ethical, and economic structures that surround the exploitation [the author] describes."

As a side note, in 2002, incoming students were not only required to READ the assigned book, the assignment involved writing a one-page essay on the book, bringing their essay to campus and "sharing your written response with others."

For 2003, in the spirit of "this Carolina tradition and introduction to the intellectual life of the campus" (also from the ripped-off poster) students now only have participate in a discussion group. No need to waste time actually writing anything.

A UNC senior, Michael McNight, decided he had seen quite enough of this one-sided "introduction to the intellectual life" on the UNC-Chapel Hill campus and decided to raise a stink about why the assigned books always seemed to be pro-Left wing, anti-American, and/or anti-capitalism.

He raised some money and bought some ads in the campus newspaper and elsewhere and got a bunch of Republican members of the state legislature - which pays UNC's bills - interested in the subject as well.

According to a piece in the Raleigh News & Observer by Jane Stancill, a group of legislators trouped up from Raleigh to Chapel Hill for an "unusual gathering which bounced between polite conversation and tense debate."

At that meeting, a law professor, Judith Wegner, said - you better sit down for this - that "professors should, and do, check their politics at the classroom door."

I suggested to McNight the university might want to institute a drug testing program in the law school faculty lounge.

Michael McNight told me he had asked the Chancellor why only one book was being assigned and why that book was always championing a Liberal point of view.

He was told that it was designed to generate critical thinking among the incoming students.

"Why not give them two books," McNight said he had asked? "One Left and one Right?"

He said he was told it would only serve to confuse students with too many conflicting points of view.

I love this story because one young man, with determination and guts, has made a real issue out of something he saw and thought was unfair, unreasonable and - dare we say it - academically dishonest.

The university chancellor said to the legislators at the meeting spawned by McNight's activities, "I think your criticism will have an impact on our thinking."

Or the legislators will have an impact on your funding.

Here's what you get on yer Secret Decoder Ring page today: You get yer photo of the poster from the student center, you get yer photo of Michael McNight, you get your photo of the backyard of the house where the fundraiser was held, and you get yer Catchy Caption of the Day!

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