The exchange between Professors Hudson and Self on the merits of reverse discrimination sidesteps any discussion on the role of a university as an institution of learning.

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge. The most important knowledge is neutral to race, class, or gender. Two and two don’t care who the adder’s mother is, they cheerfully make four.

Sodium doesn’t ask what your father does before it explodes in water. A good essay makes a point, whether its writer is a man or a woman.

This knowledge is hard-won. Harder-won is the knowledge that makes possible a civilization in which professors of Philosophy and English can argue the merits of reverse discrimination without being fired or sent to prison.

It is hard work to understand the origin and development of that knowledge and the questions it leaves unanswered. But that hard work is the task we tackle in a proper university.

I’ve read too many horror stories akin to those about students who can’t locate the United States on a map.

I challenge each professor to dispel the horror by compelling the students to gain a rigorous understanding of that hard-won knowledge.

That will be hard work, but our students will then be busy thinking about important ideas, rather than fighting over trivial differences. They will also avoid being the subject of another horror story about education.[[XR]]

Stephen K. Karlson

Associate Professor

Member, Faculty Senate