Nerd News: Conservatism on Campus and a New Class at Brown

Remember this recent post on political bias on campus?  Here's something new and hopeful at Brown University:

This semester, Brown University is offering a new course on political conservatism. The university said the course is unrelated to current events and reflects Brown’s commitment to “broad-based academic inquiry and intellectual exploration.’’ 

... The independent study course — Modern Conservatism in America: Conservative Thought in the 20th Century — was designed by five students in collaboration with Steven G. Calabresi, a visiting professor of political science with a high profile in conservative legal and political circles. Calabresi, a Northwestern University law professor, co-founded the Federalist Society, the nation’s leading forum for conservative and libertarian thinking about the law and its impact on public policy. He also served in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, advised Attorney General Edwin Meese III and wrote speeches for former Vice President Dan Quayle. 

Terrence George, a Brown sophomore who helped put the course together, said it “isn’t meant to indoctrinate anybody, but to inform people about a perspective they would not hear about.  

“The history of intellectual conservatism at Brown is a history denied,’’ he declared.

For the record, I don't want conservatives brainwashing people any more than I want liberals brainwashing people, but I don't think that's what the class is about.  Anyway, it's a welcome thing indeed to see any differing perspectives on campus at all!  Even better: clear signs that there are students out there who are thinking for themselves and resisting the one-size-fits-all campus mental orthodoxy.  Now there's a kind of academic freedom that's change we can believe in.