The College Fix

The College Fix presents a roundup of the top scandals, screw-ups, and stupid decisions involving college campuses. This week, Obama would make a terrible late-night talk show host, and students at Harvard want to ban smoking. But first…

3). Georgetown University continues to create controversy with respect to Catholicism and contraception. The university announced that contraception would not be added to its health care policy, prompting criticism from Sandra Fluke and Co. Fluke has the right, of course, to advocate that Georgetown change its health care policies. By the same token, Georgetown should have the right not to pay for services that are objectionable to the university’s ideology.

In separate but semi-related Georgetown news, faculty members sent a letter to Rep. Paul Ryan chastising him for his budget, which they claim is in violation of Catholic social teaching. According to the letter:

In short, your budget appears to reflect the values of your favorite philosopher, Ayn Rand, rather than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Her call to selfishness and her antagonism toward religion are antithetical to the Gospel values of compassion and love.

Ryan’s response was short, but basically on point:

Ryan looks forward to affirming our shared commitment to a preferential option for the poor, which of course does not mean a preferential option for bigger government.

Do the Gospels call for government to confiscate wealth from the ungenerous? Did Jesus instruct legislatures to centrally plan the lives of others? I think not.  These sources of religious truth are largely silent on public choice economics, specifically because they are guidelines for how people should choose to live their lives, not econ textbooks.

2). Two Harvard graduate students—they are married with a baby—want smoking banned in their university apartments. The problem is, they live in the apartments specifically intended for smokers, and they refuse to move, because it would be “selfish” of them to escape all that second-hand smoke with everybody else still breathing it.

What good neighbors.

1). President Obama visited college campuses and even taped an episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His TV segment was basically an awkward campaign commercial masquerading as a not-all-that-funny comedy/musical sketch. Well, the students in the audience loved every second of it; they laughed constantly.

Obama’s focus was squarely on the student loan issue. He wants to save college kids a few bucks there—isn’t that nice? But, as Fix Contributor Cameron Parker put it:

There are many more important issues the president could have addressed. After all, this is a president who continues to abuse civil liberties and who has authorized the killing of American citizens using automated drones. Yet he cares about our student loans—how comforting.

In any case, if Obama’s support among students really is dropping, you wouldn’t know it by listening to the roar from the audience on Fallon’s show.

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