Bennish is Back!

Jay Bennish has been reinstated. That's fine with me. He's been warned. Whether he keeps politicizing his classes is up to him. If he does, he should be canned.

As I think back to high school, I couldn't tell what my teachers' politics were. One, I learned later, was a conservative, but that's all I know. If they wanted to criticize a president, they could wait until he was dead. It would have been highly unprofessional to bring politics into anything. That was true in colleges, too. Activism, as in "The use of direct, often confrontational action, such as a demonstration or strike, in opposition to or support of a cause," has always been offensive to me because of the apparent willingness of those involved to deny other people their rights. This used to be a civil society, where it wasn't legal to accost people on the street and demand money, or call them names because of their faith. What made the civil rights movement so powerful was that they did things that white people could do with impunity. Sit-ins were demonstrations where blacks would violate Jim Crow laws by sitting in a restaurant asking to be waited on, remaining seated in the front of a bus instead of moving to the back for white riders, or marching peacefully carrying signs.

These days the demonstrators, too often start fights, scream at people, throw things, destroy property or disrupt what others are doing. Somewhere along the line, the demonstrators became the masters, with judges backing them up, while people who just want to go shopping or walk in the park are supposed to be ashamed of themselves if they object to panhandling, vagrancy or people marching around chanting.

Activism was once justified when people were being manifestly denied their civil rights. But more and more these days, they are just demands for whatever they want, right or not. If Bennish wants to criticize the president or indoctrinate his students with hatred of this country, he should be told to hit the road. That's not what school is for. Alternatively, he could teach what used to be call political economics. But even then, rants about individual politicians or parties are out of bounds. The Dems are angry. I can understand that. But acting like spoiled children and venting on the job are no more welcome that posting Playboy centerfolds or telling racial or sexual jokes.

Here's an example of what I mean. Accusing Lieberman of supporting "rapists' rights" because he opposes abortion, or marching with "God hates fags!" signs, or barging into a wedding party outside an LDS temple with a bullhorn telling the participants they're all going to hell--they're all going on and they stink. They're dividing this country into angry camps. It started in the 1960s with angry students. Now it's spread to just about every group seeking change or defending it.

It's time we reinstated self-control as the norm of our society. I hope Justices Alito and Roberts will bring back some of that civility. We are supposed to be a society where disputes are resolved by political debate and votes. The courts and our other institutions, such as public schools and universities have no business trying to short-circuit that process, except when one is so obvious in the Constitution that ignoring it amounts to invidious discrimination.