I picked this book up, abandoned in our mail room, and decided to read it even though it seemed unrelated to my situation.
This right wing New York writer and member of the Manhattan Institute seems to despise affirmative action in all of its dimensions as it applies to on-campus life in America. With abundant examples, she documents the negative effects of not just admissions policies, but of the whole process. Seemingly a vocal advocate for freedom of speech, she relates personal experiences where her scheduled lectures have been cancelled by student protests, with inadequate responses to those protests by administrators and police. The expenses of mandatory diversity and inclusion training in universities around the country at the expense of real science and humanities teaching is sarcastically exposed. There is a long section on the largely false peril of on campus sexual assault and rape and the need to teach about inclusion and tolerance of the many sexual categories of students which could be summed up simply as the need for tolerance.
There is much about this book that makes a lot of sense, and it is a counterweight to the popular narrative about prevalent victimhood. However, it is also entirely oriented to American culture and universities with limited application elsewhere. Perhaps most telling of her contradictory stand is that in spite of her advocacy for more teaching of classical music, language, and history she nowhere criticizes Trump, but castigates Obama’s policiesc in several places. To quote Shakespeare: “The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.”
3/5
The Passionate Reader 