After reading about Bucknell’s problem with the phrase “hunting terrorists,” an alumnus suggested that I give the new university president, Brian C. Mitchell, the benefit of the doubt:

Dear Mr. Maloney,

I saw your story about Bucknell yesterday in National Review Online. I’m writing this note without knowing the details about the “hunting for terrorists” incident. Whatever may or may not have happened, I honestly believe and want you to know from one Bucknell alum to another that Brian Mitchell has already done more for diversity of ideas in his first year than all of his predecessors combined in the last 10.

Just a few examples...

One of his first actions was to invite members of the Conservatives Club to his home and make it clear that his own political convictions would never be known, and that they would be treated fairly at all times — their days of being bullied and treated as outcasts on campus were over.

He put out the welcome mat for visiting conservative speakers, not just liberals, and helped support the BUCC in bringing several notables including Rick Santorum and Christopher Hitchens, the latter to ardently defend the war in Iraq.

He has hired a new Provost, Mary DeCredico, a woman of outstanding scholarship, integrity and principle, whom he brought to Bucknell over objections from some faculty members who treated her rudely and condemned her virtually sight unseen because of her long and happy association with the U.S. Naval Academy.

He has used the opportunity of every public forum to declare his support for diversity of thought at Bucknell.

There may be days like recently when something is done or said which may be unintentional, or with which we genuinely disagree. But I believe they will become fewer and fewer.

I know that you are a passionate man driven by an inner fire to right so many past wrongs, which is very much to your credit — and you have done some amazing work to dramatize the enormous bias on college compuses, including our own.

But, while it is easy and very tempting to pile on whenever the opportunity arises, I would ask you to have some understanding, some appreciation for the huge entrenched resistance Brian Mitchell is pushing against.

President Reagan used to say we cannot undue the sins of a generation with one year of penance. We have a long way to go at Bucknell. But we have made a real start. And, importantly, the quiet revolution at our university is being led by
the students themselves — young people like Tom Elliott and Michael Boland who started the Conservatives Club and the Counterweight, and who were followed by equally bright and committed young conservatives like Charles Mitchell and Allison Kasic and Dominic Rupprecht who are carrying the flame and gaining more and more recruits to join them on the battlefield of ideas.

Together, they have braved ridicule from professors for asking why Karl Marx is given credence but Frederick von Hayek is essentially ignored. They have been attacked for challenging a Women’s Resource Center for being militantly one-sided. They have been called Nazis and homophobes for defending the U.S. military and inviting pro-life/bible-believing Christians to campus.

I have enormous respect for these wonderful young Bucknellians. They have taken real risks to stand up for their principles and to lead Bucknell to a better place where intellectual plualism can thrive, and America’s great heritage of free ideas and institutions is honored once again.

But, they cannot succeed without a President like Brian Mitchell who, in turn, needs people like you to give him a fighting chance. Brian is not a conservative. But, like Evan Maloney he, too, is driven by an inner fire — his is the fire of fairness that drives him to treat every person with dignity and respect. Guided by that belief, he is also an incredibly competitive man who will not permit Bucknell to lose by default in the war of ideas.

We have a captain on the field who is determined to win — please try to give him the benefit of the doubt...

Thanks and respectfully,

[Name Withheld ‘XX]

Withheld,

Thanks a lot for your e-mail. It reflects the optimism about President Mitchell that I’ve heard from a number of other people. I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, which is why I closed the piece by saying “Let’s hope this incident is just a minor misstep in a new administration, and not a sign of things to come.” I am willing to believe this incident is exactly that: a minor misstep.

It pains me to have a hand in spreading bad news about a school I love, one where I spent four great years, but Bucknell has been infested with political correctness since my time there, and most likely before that. Unfortunately, calling attention to Bucknell’s problems is the only way cure them. Years of silence hasn’t done any good; aside from different ways of harassing conservative students, not much has changed in a decade-and-a-half. And nothing will change unless trustees and alumni get involved.

I hope you are right about President Mitchell. I would like to share in your optimism, and I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I hope he is the right leader to repair the school’s spotty record on intellectual tolerance and diversity of thought. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I think an apology to the students is in order, as is a strong, definitive statement that the school is done hassling students over political speech. That would be a good start.

We alumni will be watching.

Hope all is well,
Evan ‘94