Williams Liberty is an unofficial, unauthorized, conservative friendly site that provides breaking news regarding Williams College. Follow us on Twitter at @WilliamsLibert5.
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - According to a new poll released by the Williams Record, student opinion about the college's institutions and policies is heading in a negative direction.
"Compared to the approval ratings survey from the fall 2020 semester," they wrote, "approval of the College dropped 17 percent, from 86 percent to 69 percent, while approval for President Maud S. Mandel decreased by 16 percent, from 72 percent to 56 percent. Eighty-five percent of students approved of the College faculty, a three percent decrease from the previous semester."
The study itself looks credible. There are about 2,000 students at the college. They report that they sent the approval rating survey to 500 randomly selected students. They indicated they got 169 respondents to answer their questions. They are reporting a response rate of 34 percent. Demographically, they report that, of the respondents, 36 percent were first-years, 18 percent were sophomores, 26 percent were juniors, and 20 percent were seniors.
One of the things that made the students unhappy was the heavy-handed approach president Maud Mandel took in cracking down on illegal campus drinking. The campus security staff shut down a large party at the famous Wood House and apparently there is still a lot of anger associated with the issue and with the fairly harsh punishments Maud dealt out to the youthful party-goers.
Since there is basically no risk at all for young people exposed to COVID-19, I can imagine why they thought the college's policies were stupid and okay to ignore for a night. Nevertheless, the conflict over Wood House opened the door for campus do-gooders to smear the characters of the unfortunate students who had simply suffered enough of this bullshit and decided to take their chances that night.
Writing about the Wood House debacle, the Williams Record shared the comments of Gigi Gamez ’22 who was worried about having on campus the type of person who would attend a party like that because they would probably be reckless in other ways too. The behavior of the partying students was "disheartening" to her. Disheartening, by the way, is a fancy way of saying that something is causing you to lose determination or confidence.
I suppose we can take satisfaction ourselves in the fact that students are not happy with the results of their own woke students, faculty, and administrators who have turned the school into a leftist, critical theory-inspired madrasa. In a sane world, students would be less worried about shaming those who do not fear COVID-19 and more worried about the dangers of those cold, slippery, icy little roads.
John C. Drew, Ph.D. is an award-winning political scientist and a former Williams College professor. He is an occasional contributor at American Thinker, Breitbart, Front Page, PJMedia and WND.
LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA - I have been puzzled and unhappy about the shortage of conservative comedians in the country. I've met some of the funniest and they have all expressed frustration with the discrimination they face in the job market. Leftist performers, for example, may threaten boycotts if a club books a conservative comedian.
Some of the problem may also be taste. Conservatives, as a rule, are turned off by foul language and sexual content, which seem common among leftist comedians. This makes the challenge of writing comedy to appeal to a conservative audience or a mixed audience all the more difficult.
Over the last few years, I've decided to do what I can to bring back conservative comedy by developing my skills as a stand-up comedian.
I've always been funny in class, as far back as high school. I had a lecture hall of students laughing by the time I held my first full-time political science job at the University of Oregon. I remember one of my colleagues at Williams once remarked that the best thing about me and my teaching was my humor.
The job of being a comedian, however, it is different when you focus solely on comedy. They mean it when they describe a venue as a comedy factory. This is because you have to keep people laughing for an extended time. So far, I've written enough good material to keep the crowd laughing every 20 to 30 seconds for about 10 minutes. The YouTube video above is my second try in front of an audience.
I took a class to learn the basics. I was surprised that when I brought out comedy that would appeal to conservatives - Obama's interest in being gay, or Michele's manly qualities - that my instructor would discourage me and politely move my act towards family oriented humor. I later found out he was apparently a Democrat who hates Trump even though he is active here in Orange County, CA.
I've finally been invited to do a 20 minute show at the Union Market at the Kaleidoscope in Mission Viejo, CA. The problem is I only have 15 minutes of material. If you'd like to see how my last performance at Union Market worked out, follow this Facebook link.
By the way, if you have any good jokes, please share them with me. I'm always looking for great new material. Eventually, I'd like to bring more conservative content into my act. Imagine, for example, what it would be like to open up the TV and see Kamala Harris as your president.
I was a little startled to learn that DDF has been banned over at the Why Evolution is True blogsite. This is the on-line home of Jerry Coyne, one of our nation's most outspoken public intellectuals. He is a Harvard trained evolutionary biologist. Along with Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, Coyne is one of the world's most prominent "New Atheists."
Coyne's blogsite, Why Evolution is True, reportedly has over 50,000 e-mail subscribers. Lately, Coyne has been especially supportive of Luana Maroja, a fellow biologist. He has used his highly visible site to bring the free speech standards of the Chicago Principles to Williams College.
Earlier, Coyne cited a number of my comments on the Sawacki Report and published them on his site. I was surprised when DDF subsequently went after Coyne and accused him of being a fool. What?! I later got an e-mail from Coyne indicating he was offended by DDF's words and that the intellectual skirmish had continued over at Why Evolution is True. Coyne posted the following statement on his blog:
After letting you use my site to direct traffic to yours, I will ban you for insulting the host (what a rude person you are in your post, a characteristic you must have gotten from the woke Williams students).
First, though, since you had the temerity to call me a fool, let me reply that you are an arrant jackass. The only “mistake” I made in my post was characterizing the universities who use the Chicago Principles as “adopting them” rather than, as the FIRE site says, the 65 schools “Have adopted or endorsed the Chicago Statement or a substantially similar statement.”
LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA - If you would like to stay in touch, I have established a new blog called Williams Liberty.
Williams Liberty has a different mission compared to Ephblog. Williams Liberty will be focused primarily on breaking news. It will be promoted through my existing Twitter accounts, accounts that have more followers than the college's Twitter accounts. Covering breaking news at our nation's top liberal arts college is a service which cannot be provided by the Williams Record and would not be allowed on the college's websites.
It will, of course, be conservative friendly and politically incorrect.
In particular, it will provide the conservative viewpoint which has been largely absent on campus since 1989. Its contributors will be immune from ideologically motivated abuse or boycotts.
Consistent with conservative sensibilities, it will be well-written, tightly edited and moderated. Its language will be professional and PG at worst. Williams Liberty will be open to guest contributors (anonymous or not).
Guest contributors will be restricted to existing or prior William's College faculty and students.
Comments will be welcome from all. It may reserve a few spots for student contributors who will be picked on a competitive basis at the beginning of the school year or who have done a good job as guest contributors.
If you would like to submit an article for publication at Williams Liberty, please contact me through the form available on the blogsite, or me at 949.338.5921.
By the way, you can follow Williams Liberty on Twitter at @williamslibert5.
John C. Drew, Ph.D., is a former Williams College professor in American politics and political economy. He contributes to American Thinker, Breitbart, Campus Reform, The College Fix, and WorldNetDaily.
