Grand Canyon University is a
private Christian school located in Phoenix, Arizona. Its mission statement
proclaims the school “prepares learners to become global citizens, critical
thinkers, effective communicators and responsible leaders” by providing an “academically
challenging” curriculum. This assertion is obviously an elaborate ruse, as the
school recently cancelled a speech by
Ben Shapiro, a highly popular conservative commentator. The university cited
concerns over a “current high volume of rhetoric.” Rhetoric used to be taught as part of a college’s core
curriculum. Now it frightens schools into muzzling accomplished speakers?
GCU went so far as to note the
school’s aim often aligns with Shapiro’s message, especially as it regards
Judeo-Christian values and the free market economy, but that it was banning him
from speaking “to focus on opportunities that bring people together.”
A school is neither providing an “academically
challenging” curriculum nor helping its students become “critical thinkers” or
“effective communicators” by barring them from hearing someone effectively
communicate their critical thinking.
By GCU’s “logic,” it is better to
be unified in ignorance, amorality and intolerance than to risk having students
throw a tantrum if they are exposed to ideas and opinions to which they may
disagree.
Grand Canyon University is the
largest Christian college on Earth. It takes its name from the largest natural
ravine in the world. The hole in higher education’s soul today is deeper than
the Grand Canyon itself. And just as real. Academia’s cowardly adherence to
group-think and antipathy to the truth is shamefully sentencing students to a
lifetime spent in a vast abyss of meaninglessness.
A Christian school should help to
fill that hole, not commit the same sin.
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