In 1982 a graduate student at a state university established a student organization and wrote and distributed newsletters there.

An instructor on the campus had been extremely rude and offensive to him on several occasions, making extremely racist and sexist comments to him in a very offensive manner.

He wasn't African American. He was a white man.

Yes, it is.

She stuck her finger in his face, inches from his nose, and angrily yelled, "calling a white woman a women's libber IS JUST AS BAD AS calling a black man a (the nword)" She actually said the six-letter word for the nword Clearly, SHE FELT ENTITLED to do so.

Yes, she was.

Yes, it is. In a similar manner (with her finger in his face) she also yelled, "White Men Have It Coming To Them!"

No. he didn't provoke her in any way at all. He never once used the nword.

Well, once, in class, she threw a large stack of papers at him for distribution. He did think it was kind of odd and offensive at the time, but he shrugged it off. It was only in retrospect, after considering all her other rude behavior, that he determined that is was part of a pattern of intentionally rude and offensive behavior by her.

No. She was a middle aged white female who resembled Dr. Ruth a little. She was the graduate department head's wife. She drank.

Well, the deparment's students and faculty met to socialize and unwind on Friday afternoons at "The Graduate", a sports bar nearby. One of the very senior graduate students told him about it and invited him to join. In retrospect, you might say Our Graduate Student was "lured." She was an instructor and also the graduate department chair's wife. In fact, she took this graduate student out dancing a couple of times.

No. Not at all (Laughing). As I told you, she resembled Dr. Ruth. He was a virile young man who had just run a marathon. No, he was just socializing and unwinding with the department on Friday afternoons. Her husband was always there (the department chair). The graduate student was just being friendly and polite. It was all just silly fun and games. In fact, she once stuffed a dollar bill in his pocket (in front of everyone) and asked for a kiss. She was always talking about male strippers and hot male students. As I said, she drank.

Well, why not !? Being friendly and social with your department doesn't preclude you from other activities. What could be more appropriate at a University !?

He felt the issues were very important. Back then most females in the university community and in the political community felt the same way. Because she was kind of flaky and liked to drink she was the one who let it out more. She was the canary in the coal mine, the bellweather. She also said other flaky stuff that was typical of the irresponsible rhetoric of the feminists of that time.

Well, one Friday she came into "The Graduate" and announced that we weren't allowed to say the word "gal" any more. She didn't explain why. She just said that her daughter at Stanford told her so. She bragged that her daughter went to Stanford and "not a ratty little school like sac state" (where she was an instructor on the payroll).

(laughing) No. He never used THAT word either. Her DIKTAT just came out of the blue, unprovoked.

Of Course Not ! To The Contrary In Every Way To All Of That! Of course that is how they, in their simple-minded, shallow and vindictive way, wanted to depict him.

He was a pretty well-rounded, well educated, sophisticated guy. He was born and raised in the NYC area, and had a very solid, rigorous education. He was a bit of an intellectual who appreciated good prose and he had an inclination towards writing, himself. He had liberal parents, a feminist mother, and several black friends as a young man at a time when that was very unusual. He was always ahead of his time, at the cutting edge, lived in SoHo before it became !SOHO!, lived on the Lower East Side before it became gentrified. His mentor, as a young man, was his brother-in-law, a professor at City College in Manhattan, a fortress of NYC liberalism.

Well, he found himself in a university culture where the rhetoric and the level of the discourse were absolutely childish. As I said, he felt that the instructor was a canary in the coal mine, saying under the influence of alcohol just what the rest of them thought. After all, it was her sober daughter from Stanford who told her we weren't allowed to say "gal" anymore. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. The general feminist rhetoric on campus was offensive and puerile. "All intercourse is rape." "when god made man she was only kidding." There were statements arguing that soon, with biological advancements, men would be bearing children. Another feminist argument held forth that with biological advancement females would be able to inseminate themselves, and men would become obsolete. There were always pink flyers posted all over campus, stating, "Sisterhood Is Powerful." It was an endless assault of childish, nonsensical, offensive in-your-face "girls are better than boys" insults.

Yes, it was. But it went deeper than female professors and activists and politicians just being silly little girls. It was just wrong and UNTRUE when these same white females tried to piggy-back on the Civil Rights Movement and draw a Moral Equivalence between their desire for more economic and political power as a special interest group, and the sufferings and injustices endured by African Americans for 300 years due to slavery. White women were the beloved daughters, wives, and mothers of the ruling class during those 300 years for whose welfare their (white) men worked and sacrificed. Now, the campuses and classrooms became all about male-bashing (read "WHITE MALE-bashing"

That's right. And beyond that was the general fascist nature of their behavior. No intellectual discourse was allowed on the campuses. Political Correctness was being imposed in a fascist way. Faculty, students, and administrators were terrorized (cite Gore Vidal as I did in my newsletters, "a tolerance that was not, in its effect, entirely unlike terror"), afraid to contradict feminists, gays, or minorities in any way. The censorship was external and became internalized.

Yes, That's Right. But don't just take my word for it or the word of that courageous graduate student, Listen to the very best experts in the field,

Dinesh D'Souza

Diane Ravitch