Author, chairman to debate issue
October 22, 1991
A national confrontation is brewing in the cornfields of NIU and on Wednesday night in the Sandburg Auditorium of the Holmes Student Center, it will explode in a debate.
D’Nesh D’Souza who wrote the book “Illiberal Education,” and Stanley Fish, the chairman of Duke’s English Department, will debate the issue of political correctness on American campuses.
“We’re not bringing D’Souza here in an attempt to directly connect what’s happening in our English department to politically correct speech. Although I believe that it is definitely politically related,” Student Association President Preston Came said.
D’Souza has argued in his book political correctness is a means of censoring and is clearly reverse discrimination.
Fish, however, highly supports the ethics of politically correct speech as a means for a more open and free society.
D’Souza, a former White House domestic policy adviser, points out in his book that on many campuses around the nation, such as Harvard, Yale or Michigan, the banner of political correctness has been flown in defense of minority students when in fact the methodology has oppressed the majority of students
He points out several examples in “Illiberal Education” where the methodology of political correctness has jeopardized the academic careers of students in an attempt to protect and shelter minority students.
D’Souza considers himself an Indian minority and feels that he himself has been discriminated against. However, D’Souza feels that the methodology of political correctness is not the right way to go.