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opinion BACK PA GE BY EZRA LEVANT The rise of fictional disciplines A speech last month at the University of Ottawa by Ann Coulter, the U.S. conservative commentator, was shut down by an angry mob. There was plenty of media coverage of the incident, but a largely overlooked story was the academic careers of those protesters. In the Ottawa Citizen and The Globe and Mail, a protester named Rita Valeriano was quoted. Her field of study is sociology and women's studies. Another protester was Sameena Topan, a conflict studies and human rights major. And then there's François Houle, the U of O vice president who sent a letter to Coulter, warning her of possible criminal charges for hate speech. His official biography shows his research interests include "multiculturalism." I saw no protesters who identified themselves as students in the sciences, engineering, law, or commerce. There weren't even any in traditional liberal arts like history. All protesters came from fields of study that did not exist 25 years ago. Today, there are dozens of newly invent- ed degrees, many of which now command their own university departments. They're not just the obvious ones like women's or poverty studies. Even Canadian studies has become political advocacy masquerading as scholarship. What these new disciplines have in common is the belief the world is divided between oppressors and the oppressed, and political action itself can be called scholarship. That Marxist world view has spilled over into formerly legiti- mate academic pursuits, such as English literature. Today a student is more likely to learn about Shakespeare's racism and homophobia than his meter and rhyme. What kind of minds are being formed in such mush? Valeriano's comments in union-sponsored organizations like the "public interest research groups" that form the ground troops of many street protests. Engineering and law students can't wait to get out of school to work and make some money; peace studies and gender studies students have every reason to delay that day of reckoning as long as possible. And there is another faction of campus the Globe answer the question: "I was just worried that things were going to be said about certain groups of people that were going to make them feel very unsafe and very uncomfortable and we promise our students here at the University of Ottawa a safe, positive space," she said. So, asked to state her case against Coulter, Valeriano referred not to philoso- phy but her feelings — she was "worried." Asked to balance competing claims, she resorted to psychobabble about self-es- teem: people might feel "uncomfortable" in their "positive space." It is no coinci- dence as real academic disciplines have been replaced with political campaigns, scholarly ideals like academic freedom, diversity of opinion, and critical thinking have been replaced by therapeutic buzz- words better suited to the Dr. Phil show. Many activist-students choose to stretch their university career out as long as a decade, making "student" their real profes- sion. They are subsidized by the prolifera- tion of non-governmental organizations on campus, from students unions fattened by mandatory student dues, to labour- radicals: foreign students who are full- time activists serving the policy objec- tives of their home country. The lead- ing Palestinian activist at the University of Calgary when I was a student was a Syrian national, who took one course a semester and worked full time on anti-Is- rael agitation. I later encountered him as a Hezbollah spokesman on CBC television. Law faculties are not immune to this erosion of academic standards and the invasion of ideology masquerading as jurisprudence. In the name of diversity, every Canadian school now offers courses in law so ideological and political they have no possible application in the marketplace. But since there is no room for affirmative action in contract law or property law, fictional disciplines of identity-based legal studies are created, none of whose students are employable except as political activists in an invariably tax-subsidized hothouse. It's a large cultural and political prob- lem with no single solution. But hiking tuition to 100 per cent of the real costs of a legal education is probably the first step to rooting out the professional activist class, and getting back to the books. Ezra Levant is a Calgary lawyer and author. He can be reached at ezra@ezralevant. com. He introduced Ann Coulter during her Canadian speaking tour. McKellar. The first choice for structured settlements. No controversy. The McKellar Structured Settlement™ 54 M AY 2010 www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com Untitled-3 1 4/14/10 1:00:50 PM SCOTT PAGE