Recently, ABC Network featured the Justice Department and the Patriot Act as culprits in America's seemingly systemic loss of freedom. While that may have some validity, I submit Academia is the primary agent in curbing freedom -- The freedom to think and reason.

For example, a memorandum from an Associate Dean at the University of Illinois College of Law was written to direct the construct of class "problems". There are eight guidelines intended to avoid needlessly offending or embarrasing students. No quarrel there. It is the underlying message in each of the guidelines, or "diversity check list," that is both revealing and countterproductive to the purpose of education.

The use of steriotypes is prohibited. Selection of "diverse" subjects (characters) for problems is directed. The portrayal of traditionally disfavored groups (minorities) is to be done henceforth in a positive light. Traditionally favord groups (whites) are to be cast in an inferior light. What a warped prescription for freedom of thought.

There are colleges and universities that publish lists of prohibited words and subjects. And there are penalties for violations. At Georgetown University, a student wrote a critical review of "campus policy" for the campus newspaper. He was fired according to Phyllis Schflay, a columnist for the Washington Times.

Schflay further stated that institutionalized forms of the oppression of women is typical of some 900 women studies courses taught nationwide. Furthermore, acceptance of this premise is a prerequisite to participate in class discussion. This is a distinct departure from traditional education --- cultivation of the innate powers of the mind. Instead, it smacks of submissively obedient subjects of a cult. It cultivates a zealous devotion to a movement dedicated to the demise of the traditional and conventional.

Young, innocent and fertile minds are being subverted by a faculty, who by design, are denying freedom of thought. They are being conditioned or subjected to resocialization so as to destroy national values, principles and ideals. This very experience in all too many institutions of higher learning is the antithesis of freedom of thought and the original purpose of education.

The products of this type of system (or zombie-like creatures) are therefore limited in their pursuit of success in a society that places a premium on the ability to think and reason independently. Couple that with the cost of higher "education," and we have an unmitigated sham.

So, in effect, we are systemically breeding-out the central purpose of education and supplanting it with social activism.

While the justice system and the media are certainly playing a reinforcing role in this "resocialization" process, academia is doing it deliberately and by design.

This scenario bears out the axiom that democracies (and republics) contribute most to their own undoing. Witness Athens, Rome and all the great civilizations. Many an American paid the ultimate price to defend the liberty and freedom we enjoy. Now, it would seem, we are paying academia to systematically undo all we as a nation stand for.

Wake up America. The battlefield is now in our own backyard. The very existence of this great Republic is now at stake. The task: Flush out of our colleges and universities those who would undermine our principles and values as a nation.

Nathan C. Vail
Fort Worth, Texas