College and university campuses across the country claim to be bastions of diversity, where students of every sort come together to learn, socialize and solve the great issues of the day. In truth, however, this diversity is rarely more than skin deep, emphasis on the "skin." Columnist John Leo argues that Newsweek's "'hottest' diversity campus" - Wesleyan - has virtually no intellectual diversity to speak of. Instead, Leo notes, "the students tend to have opinions from every corner of MoveOn.org" and "visiting speakers who challenge any aspect of the campus orthodoxy are as rare as woolly mammoths." Instead, the "diversity" that is celebrated on campus includes a left-liberal politically correct orthodoxy and is celebrated through the "naked dorm, the transgender dorm, the queer prom, the pornography-for-credit course, the obscene sidewalk chalking, the campus club named crudely for a woman's private part, or the appearance on campus of a traveling anti-Semitic road show, loosely described as a pro-Palestinian conference." And, of course, while all-female dorms are encouraged, the newest politically correct fight aims to force fraternities to accept women as members or "pay a stiff financial price." Leo notes that this crusade is particularly odd at Wesleyan since many of the frats there "are receptive to gays and set rooms aside for female residents." Leo's daughter, a liberal Democrat and 2004 graduate of the school, rightly questions what this narrow-mindedness is going to do to Democrats of her generation. In particular, she "wonders how [they] will be able to speak convincingly to the middle of the political spectrum when so many of them shun the complexity of arguments and simply spout the party line."
"Revealing Wesleyan," by John Leo, Townhall.com, January 3, 2005