By Joe Murray
“Education,” thundered Joseph Stalin, “is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.” In a day where Easter has been replaced with Earth Day, Scripture is argued to be a form of hate speech, and Tolerance equates to the muzzling of traditional Judeo-Christian values, should it come as any surprise that the weight of the education system is aimed at discrediting conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives?
Make no mistake, the past few months have been extremely beneficial to the homosexual community. Sodomy has become a celebrated constitutional right, New York City officially resurrected a homosexual Jim Crow by creating a high school strictly for gays, and gay marriage has been declared in Canada and, possibly soon, in California. There is no doubt about it, homosexuals are in the driver's seat and Americans holding traditional values have been moved to the back of the bus.
Doubt the power and authority of the homosexual lobby? A quick visit to Hofstra University, a medium-sized liberal arts college located in Long Island, will quickly erase those doubts. As it stands today, Hofstra offers the country a clear vision of what happens when radical homosexual activists hijack college administrations and recreate college culture in their image.
According to Law.com, a handful of Hofstra's “forward thinkers,” a.k.a. homosexual propagandists, assembled for the purposes of trying to “discover” additional alternatives to advance the cause of “nondiscrimination” in the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered) community. Hofstra's desire to further outreach to the LGBT community was fueled out of a level of guilt, for Hofstra had been fretting over the fact that it let the ROTC on campus. You see, the ROTC imposes a “don't-ask, don't-tell” policy for any recruits, thus causing Hofstra's cosmopolitan conscience a great deal of torment. Once the smoke cleared and the “forward thinkers” emerged from their huddle, Hofstra's new idea was unveiled to the public.
It was decided that the best way to advance the “cause of nondiscrimination” was to dangle the dollar before incoming law students. In other words, Hofstra created a University-funded ” LGBT Fellowship” in which three incoming first-year students are lured to Hofstra by a $20,000 scholarship and a $5,000 stipend. This sum of $25,000 from a law school charging tuition rates of upwards of $30,000 is hard to pass up. The catch? By receiving this “scholarship,” the student must make a pledge that he will do all in his power to advance the homosexual cause. Uncle Joe (Stalin) would be proud.
Unfortunately, the buck does not stop here and Hofstra's unholy matrimony to the homosexual agenda is further exposed when one reviews the guideline to “Nondiscriminatory Discourse in the Area of Classroom Instruction,” which is posted on the University's website. A careful reading of this diatribe reveals that in Hofstra's dictionary, “nondiscriminatory” is a synonym for censorship. Under these guidelines, a professor is guilty of “sexual orientation discrimination” if he uses the word “gay” to “mean strange, bizarre, odd, abnormal, or unacceptable,” continues to use “heterosexist terms,” fails to challenge the “anti-LGBT statements or comments made by others in the classroom,” and the list goes on. In other words, Hofstra has created a speech code that seeks to fix the rules of the political debate surrounding the issue of homosexuality.
The Iron Fist of Moscow was right — education is a weapon, and at Hofstra traditionalists are in the crosshairs. By actively recruiting and funding new members to advance a clearly political cause, Hofstra has crossed the line between education and indoctrination and polluted the intellectual well of free thought from which its students are supposed to drink.
Hofstra is teetering on the brink of the ultimate betrayal — it has sold its collegiate soul for a one-night stand with the extremes of the gay and lesbian community. Hofstra has bequeathed to the extreme left a powerful gift — the keys to the academic vault. In regards to the debate on homosexuality, Hofstra has clearly taken sides and has subsequently deprived its students of a free and fair debate on the issue. According to Hofstra's own guidelines, professors are mandated to “challenge” any comment that opposes the homosexual agenda. This, quite frankly, is staggering when the University's mission statement holds that Hofstra is committed to the dissemination of ideas.
In response to glaring suspicions caused by the LGBT Fellowship, Hofstra states that all is done in the name of advancing the cause of “nondiscrimination.” If Hofstra is truly committed to the concept of nondiscrimination, I urge them to put their money where their mouth is and create a fellowship for Christian students. In light of the recent removal of the Ten Commandments and second-class treatment of Christian activists, it is American Christians who are the brunt of countless acts of resentment and hostility. Odds are, however, that no such Fellowship will ever take shape at Hofstra, for it is the radical politics of homosexuality, not the principle of nondiscrimination, which appears to be the real motive behind Hofstra's actions.
In a letter to prospective students, Hofstra Law Dean David Yellen writes, “at Hofstra, though, we do more than help you learn 'the law' and develop the critical reasoning skills needed by any successful lawyer….” That is right, America, Hofstra does do more — it uses tuition dollars to fund a politically-driven agenda under the guise of an education and censors debate in the arena that used to be the cornerstone of the marketplace of ideas.
In the law, there is a legal principle of caveat emptor — or, in other words, “let the buyer beware.” For many of those students who sought an objective education and not a forced-fed political orthodoxy, this lesson may be learned too little, too late.
(Joe Murray is a staff attorney for the Tupelo, Mississippi-based American Family Association Center for Law & Policy. The Center specializes in constitutional litigation. Murray is a 2002 graduate from the Hofstra University School of Law. This article courtesy of Agape Press).
