The rabid, hateful tenor of the recent, well-orchestrated verbal attack by Muslim students on Israel's gracious ambassador, Michael Oren, is painful to behold for those of us love higher education and this democracy. But judge for yourself here, at You Tube. Roger L. Simon justly comments that the incident -- nothing new at UC Irvine -- is a strong illustration of totalitarian behavior and today's rampant anti-Semitism. Campus administrators in fact handled the unrelenting onslaught against Oren well and appropriately, openly expressing their embarrassment and chastising the offending students. And eleven students were arrested. But I must agree with Simon that higher education as a whole will suffer if campus leaders, in this case those in California, do not do more to confront the widespread intolerance and vile incivility on our campuses:
School officials say they were embarrassed. They should be a lot more than that. They should rectify this situation immediately and in a serious way, because this is a serious case of racism. The reputation of the whole University of California system is at risk here in an era when taxpayers are in a justifiably rebellious mood. Given what’s happened, outside the sciences, it’s hard to regard Irvine as a legitimate educational institution. Why would any of us pay for what is happening there? The California Board of Regents and the administration of UCI should think about that.
