On March 9, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by the University of Iowa College of Law challenging Teresa Wagner’s successful lawsuit claiming political discrimination for her conservative views.

The decision comes a year after a more dramatic victory by Mike Adams, a conservative sociology professor who won a similar suit.  Professor Adams was awarded a promotion, a raise, $50,000 in back pay and $710,000 in legal fees from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

Underlying both stories is the more serious concern that the culture of ideological narrow-mindedness and bullying has transformed college campuses around the nation from centers of higher thinking into indoctrination centers for political and philosophical uniformity.

And it’s not just universities.  My Google search for this story turned up only two headlines, one from the conservative Washington Times and the other from the local Iowa Press Citizen.  The print media, it seems, has no more interest in open discussion and debate over opposing viewpoints than does academia.  Better to man the battlements and defend the ivory towers from that most dangerous of all enemy attackers — rational thinking and reasoned argument.

The same principle holds true in business, in education, in religion, and in every arena of social discourse.  If we can’t articulate the position of our ideological opponents, we can’t refute their arguments and, more important, we can’t fully understand our own.

For a more thorough discussion regarding the evils of groupthink, please see my article here.