Sure, these high-income kids got good grades in school — but many also attended the best high schools in the country. They do a lot of extracurricular activities — but their parents have paid through the nose for private coaches, expensive equipment and travel to faraway competitions.
We shouldn’t be surprised many of them see college activism as a way of expiating the guilt that they and their parents feel for being, well, privileged.
College administrators more and more are welcoming such budding activists. But universities reap what they sow. And so as campuses have filled up with the Zia Ahmeds of the world, they have become less hospitable to the Martin Altenburgs.
The Ahmeds of the world act like they already know everything. Recent surveys of college students seem to suggest that their support for the free and open exchange of ideas is limited. According to one by the Knight Foundation, 27 percent of college students supported restricting political ideas they found “upsetting.”
They’re the people for whom colleges construct safe spaces and issue trigger warnings. These are the students who shut down outside speakers and demand that professors censor their lectures.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member