The provost of Stanford University in the United States, John Etchemendy, made a speech last week that bears wider consideration. He said, "Over the years, I have watched a growing intolerance at universities in this country, not intolerance along racial or ethnic or gender lines - there we have made laudable progress. Rather, a kind of intellectual intolerance, a political one-sidedness, that is the antithesis of what universities should stand for.
"It manifests itself in many ways: in the intellectual monocultures that have taken over certain disciplines, in the demands to disinvite speakers and outlaw groups we find offensive, in constant calls for the university to take political stands. We decry certain news outlets as echo chambers while we fail to notice the echo chamber we've built around ourselves."
Coincidentally as he spoke, an incident on this side of the Pacific, at Auckland University, illustrated exactly what he was talking about. The Students' Association, acting on complaints, it said, had met the University Proctor to relay its concern that a club calling itself the European Students Association was being allowed to set up a stall with other clubs in the university's orientation week.
The club's Facebook page used images and symbols that led complainants to think it might be a European nationalist group. The words "Nazi" and "white pride" were mentioned, by complainants, not the club.
The next day the club announced it was withdrawing its application to affiliate with the university, citing "constant threats to our safety, exposure of privacy and general abuse". It's unnamed president said they had not intended to be more than a club for people with an interest in history and culture.
