But what have they done for us lately?
That Noonan-stalking funnyman, TBogg, alerts us to the fact that Aaron Bailey over at The Corner—excuse me, the Bad People Place—is all het up over the Lottesque ruckus raised by Hillsdale Academy’s “Bring Back ‘The Good Old Days’” ad:
To us, the good old days date back to the College’s founding in 1844. Hillsdale was the first college in the country to prohibit discrimination based on race, religion, or sex in its charter. The College sent the highest proportion of its sons, outside of the military academies, to fight on behalf of the Union in the Civil War. In 1955, the football team refused an invitation to play in the Tangerine Bowl because the event organizers would not let Hillsdale’s black students play.
Now, this is not to distract from some stellar accomplishments in diversifyin’ and just generally raising the all-too-low bar in treating fellow human beings as human beings. But I went to Oberlin College. I know a technicality when I see it. Oberlin, after all, while not the first college in the States to admit blacks, is among the first, in 1835; and Oberlin is the first college to grant BA degrees to women, in 1841. Hillsdale wasn’t even founded until 1844.
Of course, Bailey isn’t claiming any of those firsts; merely that Hillsdale was the first college to prohibit discrimination in its charter. I can’t find the text of Oberlin’s charter online (despite some rather desultory Googling), but I’m willing to concede that it’s possible they didn’t explicitly outline a prohibition of discrimination based on race, or religion, or sex, or any combination thereof. What’s more likely, though—given that Hillsdale and Oberlin were both chartered in 1850—is that Hillsdale’s the first by a matter of months, or weeks, or alphabetical order.
But we should all take a page from Orrin Hatch, shouldn’t we?
“We have to look at people who they are today, not what they may have done [...] in the past,” Hatch told the National Press Club Friday.
I haven’t been back to Oberlin since I went to watch the graduation that should have been mine. My last semester there I hadn’t even really been a student; I’d been a ghost, working part time washing dishes in the dining halls, cadging free meals, living in an $88 a month walk-in closet, hiding from what I’d thought was the phone police. (Long story. Longer than usual.) That graduation weekend a year later was a weird one, disturbed by interpersonal undercurrents roiled up from a muck that had been slumbering for over a year. Liquor was drunk in vast quantities and words were said that couldn’t be taken back, and nobody was sleeping with the people they had been except the folks you never would have expected to still be together. I stood in the sun in Tappan Square and silently toasted an imaginary gap between Mammon and Mao. “Power to the people. Teeth for shrimp. Plato was a fascist.” —Then we all went to see Hudson Hawk before I flew back to Boston, and you know what? I’m still inexplicably fond of that movie.
I’m not the best candidate for reporting on what Oberlin’s done lately, is what I’m trying to say. (Ask Amp, maybe. He stays in closer touch, and anyway Phil’s living with him now.) I do know that when I left in 1990, the President’s drive to attract a more shall we say lucrative student body was rather literally paying off; the number of froshling dorm rooms with TVs and VCRs and microwave ovens was staggering, and the froshling class gift that year outweighed the previous three years combined. Neuroscience was being courted, to the detriment of the English department. Old-timers were muttering darkly about how the place just wasn’t the same anymore, and you know what? It wasn’t. Nothing ever is. But I’m sure Oberlin’s stayed true to its pioneering liberal spirit—after its own fashion. The old alma mater sure as hell never pulled shit like this:
During Roche’s tenure from 1971 to 1999, Hillsdale College—in the words of William F. Buckley Jr.—“became the most prominent conservative college in the country.” Roche was a movement hero, adored by his followers for savaging a system of higher education hopelessly infested by government money and political correctness. He was propelled to right-wing stardom after the Supreme Court’s 1984 Grove City decision, which ruled that colleges enrolling students who used Pell grants, veterans’ benefits and other forms of government aid were “recipient institutions.” Grove City forced all recipient institutions to comply with Title IX provisions, which prohibited sex discrimination.
Grove City would have allowed the government to monitor the race, age, sex and ethnic origins of Hillsdale’s employees and students, which was ideologically unacceptable to Roche and Hillsdale’s conservative backers. To keep the government off its back, Hillsdale announced it would no longer admit students receiving government aid, thereby eliminating itself as a recipient institution.
Roche figured that Hillsdale’s refusal to accept students with government funding would attract big money, enough to replace the government’s cash with private aid. By all accounts, Roche excelled at coaxing conservative fat cats to open their wallets for Hillsdale. A former senior-level employee of Hillsdale calls him “one of the great fund-raisers in the history of political ideologies.” Roche had hauled in nearly $325 million by the time he resigned—enough to increase Hillsdale’s endowment from $4 million to $184 million, build modern facilities and provide ample student aid to any of Hillsdale’s 1,200 students who needed it. If Roche seldom made rounds on campus, it was understood: He was out raising money to beat back the liberal devils lurking outside Hillsdale’s gates.
Conservatives were delighted with their school, which they referred to as the “bastion of freedom,” the “citadel of conservatism,” the “city upon a hill.” They praised its traditional Great Books curriculum. And, as the student body became more hardcore Christian right, some may even have sung hallelujahs to God for sending George Roche III to Hillsdale College.
Deeds matter more than words, or charters, and we really ought to take into account who we are today, and not depend so much on what we might have done in the past. Especially when what’s done today is such a flagrant betrayal of that past. —Trust me, Aaron Bailey: we all know what “Good Old Days” means.
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Yeah, buncha moral giants over there at Hillsdale, with the woman who runs the inspirational magazine fucking her father-in-law (until he got married without telling her he was dating anyone).
>I do know that when I left in 1990, the President’s drive to attract a more shall we say lucrative student body was rather literally paying off
Huh. Guess I should have been proud of Vassar for waiting until '94 to become what they euphemistically called 'need -blind' (if you need money, they can't see you).
I wonder if the Women's Center is still banished to the basement of Lathrop dorm? It had been booted out of its previous (accessible, central) College Center quarters without warning or reason, neatly mirroring an forgotten incident some years ago when it had been, well, booted out of its previous quarters without warning or reason . . .
it was for reason
I would like to apologize for my alma mater (Chicago) for unleashing Paul Wolfowitz on the world.
Then again, Chicago has the oldest womens' athletic letter society in the country (I believe celebrating their 100th anniversary either this year or last).
Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with what Chicago's been doing - residence halls, classroom buildings, and other buildings are in much better shape, and they still have a good Core curriculum (although they pared some sequences down to two trimesters from three).
I don't think I'd be happy at either a conservative school (Hillsdale, Grove City), or a place like Oberlin, Reed, Evergreen State, etc. I'd likely clash with whoever's in social power at a school, whether it's conservatives, young progressives, Greeks, or whomever.