Conrad Black: Our ailing academia

Former Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente has resigned from Massey College's Quadrangle Society following controversy over her appointment. MATTHEW SHERWOOD FOR NATIONAL POST

Margaret Wente, who has long been the Globe and Mail’s leading columnist, is now the main focus of the news. Being that there are those who are defending her against what is considered as a coward and hypocritical treatment which she is receiving from Massey College. And is that after being nominated and chosen for one of the least exclusive groups of the Canadian academy, the Quadrangle Society of Massey College, Wente was abruptly rejected due to the insufficiency of her apparent fervor in proclaiming the ubiquity of racism in Canada and chase racists. In the same way, she was objected with a high affectation of the professional exaltation, that she was unloaded plagiarism. Of which it is necessary to say that it is not certain that it is true.

Now, focusing on Massey College, it is known that it was certainly founded in the 1960s, being at its time the ultimate expression of English imitation in post-colonial Canadian development. It was also the brainchild of former Governor-General, Washington Minister, High Commissioner of the United Kingdom, Chairman of the Liberal Party, and failed parliamentary candidate Vincent Massey, brother of distinguished film actor Raymond Massey.

What the facts suggest

Needless to say, some recent principals like John Fraser and former Senator Hugh Segal upheld the university’s standards. Nonetheless, a clear signal is said to have been sent that the barbarians of political correctness had breached the ivy-covered walls when Hugh fired historian Michael Marrus after a racially callous joke. In this way, it is inappropriate to bring up the fact that Marrus who works as a notable historian is considered to be of good reputation and, although it has been indicated that he is not the most emollient personality in Canada, that treatment towards him was unfair And since Hugh Segal is an impartial and civilized man, it was clear evidence of impending danger.

Consequently, vertebrate scholars are now considered and indeed freely expressed as our most threatened species now. That being so, it could be suggested that judging by the chatty messages that the new head of Massey College, Nathalie Des Rosiers, sends to the Massey community, it seems to be a perfect allegory for the growing wave of militant awakening that has engulfed our entire academy.

In this way, it could be said that this is definitely established as the potentially terminal discomfort of the western academy and has also reduced most of the western media to life support. The constant and endless concern for racism, and especially the manic requirement of professing to detect racism everywhere, behind every bush and under every bed and lurking in every heart and mind, is now almost a psychosis.

Source: Conrad Black | National Post