Snuffing Out Civility

In his 2019 Commencement address, President Eisgruber urged graduates "to use their education to help restore civil virtues to the public square."  He noted:  "We as a country are losing the capacity to disagree respectfully and civilly with each other." 

However, should not this civility begin on college and university campuses?!  They used to be bastions of free speech and venues to present new or controversial ideas, not always widely shared.  This has been largely snuffed out by violent campus protests initiated by leftist elements of what is supposed to be a democratic party!  All this appears to have greatly increased after Hillary Clinton lost the presidency.

A popular Yale University lecturer resigned due to protests over her Hallowe'en-costume-related comments.  The violent mob of leftist protesters who blocked conservative speakers at Middlebury and UC Berkeley (several times) are reminiscent of the Nationalsozialische (NAZI) Brownshirts.

Students and faculty blocked entrances and prevented conservative commentator Heather MacDonald from speaking on the Claremont-McKenna College campus.

 The large fraction of faculty leaning-left apparently extends nationwide to whole campuses, and students follow their lead in opposing conservative speakers or visitors.  This is very discouraging, and risky for campuses and for the proper education of students who will face a diversity of views in the real world!

Here at UC Davis, it was not possible to invite speaker John Christy,  a distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences, who pioneered satellite measurements of global warming. Faculty committees said he was biased, apparently because his measurements, which were widely verified, did not agree with climate-model predictions.  The latter, widely used by the alarmist climate establishment and leftist media, predict a warming rate  2.5 times the measurements!  NAS, Vol. 32, 2019, has deemed climate studies the most politicized science!