During an interview with CBS News on Tuesday, Assumption University President Greg Weiner said that he believes that the protests on college campuses that took place last spring were clearly offensive.
Weiner said, “[A]cademics, we all tend to do it, use a lot of jargon that is simply very hard to understand. I think it’s led to a divide between the academy and the American public. If you look at some of the protests that were happening on campuses last spring, I can imagine two reasonable responses if you’re someone not connected with the academy and watching them: One is to be offended, I certainly was. But the other is to simply not understand what they’re talking about and change the channel.”
Later, he added, “Certainly, government interference is at play, and I believe in what have, generally, over time, been regarded as two conservative values: One is that the private sector, especially when there’s a lot of variety, does things better than the state does. And the second is that it’s very important that there be a layer of civil society, of independent civil society between the individual and the government. So, I think that independence is quite important. But it comes with a responsibility. And that responsibility is the willingness to take a hard look at ourselves and recognize that there are problems on campus. What we don’t want to be is in the position of the patient who says, I disagree with the treatment the doctor prescribed, so I’m going to pretend I’m perfectly healthy.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
Read the full article here