Cal Thomas: Long past due

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: student protests.

WORLD commentator Cal Thomas says it’s time to follow former President Ronald Reagan’s advice on these matters. The Gipper knew how to handle them in his day.

CAL THOMAS: The year was 1966, and Ronald Reagan was running for governor of California. A major part of his platform was to “clean up the mess at Berkeley” and other college campuses experiencing protests and strikes. The issues back then included the military draft, civil rights and so-called “women’s issues.” Today’s pro-Hamas and anti-Israel protests are on a bigger scale, but Reagan’s response can still help college administrators quell the current unrest.

Take one of Reagan’s campaign speeches cited by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. In that speech, Reagan said many leftist campus movements had more to do “with rioting” and “anarchy” than “academic freedom.” He faulted university administrators and faculty for creating what he called “a leadership gap and a morality and decency gap” on campus. He suggested a code of conduct be imposed on faculty to “force them to serve as examples of good behavior and decency.”

Morality, good behavior, and decency appear to be electives, not requirements, on too many of today’s university campuses.

Regean became California’s governor in January of 1967. Six months later, he wrote a letter to Glenn Dumke, chancellor of San Francisco State College. In it, Reagan condemned those who used “the excuse of academic freedom and freedom of expression” to justify protests. He argued, “We wouldn’t tolerate this kind of language in front of our families,” and he called on Dumke to “lay down some rules of conduct.”

We need more of this type of talk to counter those who promote anarchy and support terrorist organizations like Hamas.

Last week, author Ira Stoll wrote in The Wall Street Journal that two nonprofits including the Open Society Foundation headed by George Soros have funded one organization behind some of the protests. At a minimum the IRS should check the tax-exempt status for Soros’ group and see whether they violated regulations for nonprofits. The government should also deport anyone on a student visa caught shouting anti-Semitic and anti-American slogans. Others who are found guilty of giving aid and comfort to terrorists should be expelled.

Some wealthy donors to Columbia University and other schools have pledged to withdraw financial support if order and decorum are not restored.

All of this feeds the view that America is coming apart. Where are the leaders like Ronald Reagan who label this behavior for what it is and then do something about it?

Reagan ended his letter to Dumke with this question: “Hasn’t the time come to take on those neurotics in our faculty group and lay down some rules of conduct…?”

If that time had come in 1967, surely it is long past due in 2024.

I’m Cal Thomas.

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