The Fall of Wesleyan Civilization -- Columnist Reveals Liberal School's Decadent Decline

by Jim Brown
January 10, 2005

(AgapePress) - A popular syndicated columnist is laying bare the one-sided liberal culture of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

John Leo promised his daughter he would not write about Wesleyan University until she graduated. Now that she's out, he has let loose with a column informing readers about the liberalism run amok of a university that has been home to a queer prom, a pornography-for-credit course, obscene sidewalk chalking, and a campus club crudely named for a private part of the female anatomy -- to name just a few of the school's outrages.

The Connecticut school even has a transgender dorm where those students who have had sex changes, or who want to have them, live by themselves, Leo notes. "They also have a naked dorm," he says, where "people are allowed to walk around and have wine and cheese parties naked."

The conservative columnist points out that his daughter told him that, as far as she has heard, only the men tended to show up naked at these parties, and she never knew a woman who did so. Nevertheless, he says, these nudist soirees apparently "fit in with the policy of campus confusion that Wesleyan seems to stand for."

The campus atmosphere that breeds such sordid commonplaces is no accident; but it is, according to Leo, the natural result of political correctness pushed to extremes and conservative thought pushed out altogether. He asserts that, although the school was once labeled by Newsweek as the "hottest" diversity campus in America, Wesleyan does not live up to that billing.

"In campus-speak, private language of the university, diversity means race and gender," Leo says. "It never is used to refer to diversity of ideas, and there isn't much diversity of ideas at Wesleyan. It's really a monoculture of people who believe in the PC left."

In fact, the Townhall.com writer notes, two years ago the Argus, a student newspaper at Wesleyan, conducted a survey and found that 32 percent of the students feel "uncomfortable speaking their opinion." Liberal orthodoxy plays a role, Leo asserts, but so does "an exaggerated fear of giving offense." As a result, even some very offensive things go uncriticized, leading to an extreme liberal, "anything goes" atmosphere.

Visiting speakers who challenge Wesleyan's one-sided status quo are rare, Leo asserts, as are faculty or students who might do so, because the university weeds out people who disagree with the left-wing orthodoxy on its campus. As a result, he says, Wesleyan has become a very undesirable school for all those who enjoy true diversity of ideas and real debate.