We are pleased to announce that we are bringing Dinesh D’Souza to speak at Brown on April 26. Below is our press release with more information.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Stephen Beale                                                                            sbeale@idiversity.org

Noted Conservative Commentator Dinesh D’Souza to Speak at Brown U. April 26

PROVIDENCE, RI – Noted author Dinesh D’Souza will be speaking at Brown University April 26 in an event sponsored by the Foundation for Intellectual Diversity and the Brown College Republicans.

The speech, entitled ‘Is God the Problem’ will be delivered 8 p.m. April 26 at MacMillan Hall Room 117 on the Brown University campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Many people, notably atheists, allege that belief in God is not merely unscientific and irrational but also dangerous. They argue that religion is the cause of many of the evils in the world, from the Crusades and the Inquisition to 9/11 and the current unrest in the Middle East.  In his talk, D’Souza will challenge this critique of religion and show that God, far from being the problem, is actually the main part of the solution. He will not just be making case for the utility of religion, but also an argument for the truth of religious belief.

“In the past year, we have consistently criticized Brown University for its lack of intellectual diversity,” said Stephen Beale, President of the Foundation for Intellectual Diversity. “Our purpose is not merely to criticize, but also to provide constructive alternatives to the dominance of left-wing ideology and pervasive political correctness on campus. We think this speech is the perfect example of an event that brings intellectual diversity to Brown.”

Student organizers said the event would debunk common misperceptions of religious belief and highlight the personal and societal benefits of faith in a Creator.

“I am extremely excited for Dinesh D’Souza’s arrival. His topic, “Is God the Problem?”, is ever pertinent in our current age of rampant, baseless criticism against the presence and role of religion within society,” said Anish Mitra, the vice president of the Brown College Republicans. “While there have been many unsavory actions fueled by religious fervor (which currently continue) throughout history, I am confident Mr. D’Souza will not only elucidate the myriad misconceptions of past religious behavior, but reveal the true evils of society, and ultimately show how dangerous a world without religion can be.”

“Though the buildings, letterheads, and merchandise of Brown University are adorned with its motto, ‘In Deo Speramus,’ most Brown students do not understand the paramount discipline of hoping in God,” added Keith DellaGrotta, the president of the College Republicans. “Such a principle was integral to the foundation of the country in which we reside, not to mention America’s continued political successes since. In bringing Dinesh D’Souza to lecture on campus, the Brown Republicans seek to promote discussion of the most valuable quality of faith in a Creator.”

About Dinesh D’Souza

Dinesh D’Souza is a best-selling author, leading conservative commentator, and former policy analyst for the Reagan administration. He is the author of the widely acclaimed Illiberal Education and The End of Racism. His more recent works include What’s So Great About Christianity, The Enemy at Home, Letters to a Young Conservative, and What’s So Great About America. His articles have been published in every major magazine and newspaper, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic Monthly, Vanity Fair, New Republic, and National Review and he has been a guest on The Today Show, Nightline, The News Hour, and the O’Reilly Factor. D’Souza has been called one of the “top young public-policy makers in the country” by Investor’s Business Daily and The New York Times Magazine named him one of America’s most influential conservative thinkers.

For more, visit. http://dineshdsouza.com/more/about.html

We appeared in our second Brown Daily Herald story of the week today. This story focused on perceptions of Brown and we spoke to the issue of how intellectually diverse the University is. Here is more:

A 2006 article by Herald Opinions Columnist Sean Quigley ’10 in the Brown Spectator, Brown’s publication for conservative and libertarian views, called the post-O’Reilly iteration of the party “an abomination, whose justification is an affront to logical reasoning, let alone spiritual well-being.”

In recent years, conservative students and alumni have vocalized criticism of Brown as a particularly left-leaning institution.

Stephen Beale ’04, who started the Spectator in fall 2002, formed the Foundation for Intellectual Diversity after encountering difficulty funding the Spectator as a student organization. A non-profit dedicated to promoting “underrepresented ideas, beliefs and perspectives” at Brown, the foundation provides money and assistance to conservative and religious student groups, according to its Web site.

“The most important kind of diversity on college campuses is intellectual diversity and so when you’re talking about other forms of diversity — racial diversity, ethnic diversity, sexual diversity — Brown may do very well,” Beale said. “But when you talk about intellectual diversity, that is something that Brown is very much lacking in.”

One “encouraging development,” according to Beale, is the Kaleidoscope Lecture Fund, which Beale said was started after members of the foundation discussed a perceived lack of diversity in campus speakers with President Ruth Simmons.

The fund is used to bring speakers that “in the stereotypical view are seen as being ‘not Brown,’ ” said Assistant to the President Hannelore Rodriguez-Farrar ’87 MA’90 PhD’09.
Started in 2005, the fund was originally constituted with $100,000 of the president’s discretionary funds. Past Kaleidoscope speakers include Sally Winn, then vice president of Feminists for Life of America; Peter Singer, a Princeton professor who is vocal on animal rights issues; and diplomats John Bolton and Richard Holbrooke ’62.

“What we need to do is fulfill our mission,” Rodriguez-Farrar said. “Part of that mission is intellectual diversity.”

Click here to read the whole article.

It isn’t every day that you read lucid criticisms of moral relativism and postmodernism at Brown University, but this scathing column that recently ran in the Brown Daily Herald was a notable exception:

The Creeping Nihilism of Stanley Fish

Brian Judge, Opinions Columnist

Published: Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A few days ago, Providence native and New York Times opinionator Stanley Fish penned the most mind-bogglingly stupid opinion column I have ever read (“Are There Secular Reasons?”, Feb. 22). In fact, this column was so stupid that Professor Fish managed to edge out Miss Teen South Carolina for “stupidest thing I have ever heard,” even though he uses complete sentences and references 17th century philosophers.

Professor Fish attempts to argue that the answer to his titular question is no: secular reasoning can’t answer any normative questions — questions that ask what qualities the world should have, rather than what qualities the world actually does have. Fish regurgitates the argument found in “The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse”, a book whose thesis is that “there are no secular reasons, at least not reasons of the kind that could justify a decision to take one course of action rather than another.” What exactly Professor Fish means by “secular reasons” is never spelled out explicitly, but I take it to mean something along the lines of the impossibility of secular political discourse to divorce itself from the normative religious beliefs of its participants.

The only reason that this is worth mentioning is that this answer is both the harbinger of the end of reasonable political discourse and seems to be in vogue among some people here. In effect, Professor Fish is arguing that there isn’t a single, universal, comprehensive way of valuing courses of action. Since we all have our own religious beliefs, it is foolish to try to legislate on the basis of “secular reasons” which necessarily lack substance: “how can one squeeze moral values or judgments about justice [...] out of brute empirical facts?” In other words, it’s not possible to answer normative questions on the basis of reason and universally accepted facts. This is the unholy broth out of with Professor Fish and postmodernism emerged.

What happens when you deny the possibility of speaking in a common language towards common goals? People splinter off into groups that are based on an intuitive appeal that is immune from criticism precisely because they plug their ears and deny the possibility of being criticized.

Nihilism is the emptying of purpose, truth, essential value and meaning from human life. You can spot a nihilist by his insistence that “it’s all relative” or “all beliefs are created equally.” Stanley Fish is a nihilist. People who deny the existence of a universal means to evaluate universal ends are nihilists. It is in fact not “all relative” because of the common biology that we all share. In other words, you don’t need to enter the domain of “prior metaphysical commitments” in order to discover answers. Our prior biological commitments take us far enough. We all need to eat. There are limited resources. Thus, we are going to prefer courses of action that put food on our tables. This is a normative framework. It begins to answer the question “how we should live” in a universally accessible way.

Living in a globalized world where everyone is connected requires that we be able to address normative questions like “how should we live?” in a universally accessible manner. Such is the domain of “secular reason.” It’s not ‘secular’ because it denies the importance or relevance of people’s metaphysical beliefs. Rather, it is secular because it doesn’t demand that one come to the table with anything other than a willingness to accept empirical facts. Universal values exist (e.g. that the earth should continue to be habitable) so there needs to be a way to talk about them universally. The very fact that I can disagree with Professor Fish and think that he is wrong suggests a common basis on which to disagree.

I find it baffling that the stereotypical Brown student somehow emerges from a reconciliation of an affinity towards postmodernism and an affinity towards social justice. If you are one of the self-proclaimed post-modernists at Brown, take a good look at the LaRouchians who hand out pamphlets on Thayer Street and really consider whether or not they are a legitimate political faction. If you blow past them in an indignant huff, then you aren’t a postmodernist. If you think that political activism, social justice or environmental sustainability are important, then you aren’t a postmodernist. If someone tries to hand you a copy of Lyotard’s “The Postmodern Condition” on Thayer Street, tell him or her to do something useful.

Although the Brown Daily Herald usually is good about letting student conservatives voice their opinions, its editorials tend to be reliably left-of-center. So we were more than a little surprised to read an editorial in the Feb. 26 edition lamenting the absence of any student activism on the cause of fiscal responsibility in government and calling for the establishment of a non-partisan group, Brown Students for Fiscal Responsibility in Government. Here is more from the editorial:

Several considerations favor the creation of a new non-partisan group. The federal and state governments face fiscal predicaments that are too perilous to be considered through a partisan lens. A 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office projects that the federal government’s debt is on its way to reaching 170 percent of GDP by 2040, far exceeding the previous high of 109 percent set during World War II. By 2080, debt could surpass 600 percent of GDP. Clearly, the present path is unsustainable, and unless our country can change course, the future seems to hold huge tax increases, major cuts in services, or both.

Rhode Island’s state government is also struggling — it projects a $427 million deficit in the coming fiscal year. The real long-term issue, though, is the state employee pension plan, which has roughly $4.3 billion in unfunded liabilities, according to a report released last week by the Pew Charitable Trust’s Center on the States. The report also noted that Rhode Island is one of eight states without funding to cover over one-third of its total pension liabilities.

A new student group could do a lot of good by getting involved on the local level. And by showing a willingness to work towards the state’s long-term fiscal health, the group can bolster the already extremely strong case against last year’s proposed taxes on out-of-state students and large non-profits.

If created, this new group should be sure to eschew any hint of partisanship. Recently, neither major political party has been able to establish credibility on fiscal issues. President Obama’s plans to freeze some domestic spending for three years and establish a new deficit panel are reasonable first steps, especially with some economists saying that it is still too early in the recovery to halt stimulus efforts. However, he has yet to develop a comprehensive plan to reverse the damage done to the federal accounts by the economic recessions of 2001 and 2009 and the Bush presidency, which inherited an $800 billion projected annual surplus.

In trying to establish itself on campus, Brown Students for Fiscal Responsibility in Government will come up against an interesting challenge: how to make an issue traditionally associated with conservatives and libertarians appeal to a liberal-leaning student body. This challenge is perhaps what excites us most about the possibility of a new group of this sort. The current level of partisanship and gridlock in our government is unacceptable if America is going to continue to prosper in the 21st century. By starting a pragmatic, non-partisan conversation on a contentious issue now, our generation can prepare to do a better job when our turn to lead comes.

Plus, in the same edition, the Herald carried a column by a student who debunked the idea of moral relativism, arguing that ‘tolerance’ should not be used to deny our moral beliefs.

See if this sounds familiar, from the New York Daily News earlier this week:

“At Princeton, she was to be the guest of a pro-Israel student group. But then, according to published reports, Muslim students took offense at her presence, a campus imam interceded with a campus rabbi and a leader of the sponsoring organization suddenly thought better of hosting the talk. He apologized for inviting someone such as Darwish and begged pardon for having done a poor job of researching her views.”

Yes, once again, Nonie Darwish has been uninvited to speaking engagements at Ivy League universities – this time Princeton and Columbia. (The latter of which was, of course, happy to serve as a platform for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.)

What, incidentally, are Darwish’s extremely controversial views? She believes Islamic countries oppress women and indoctrinate their children with hatred for outsiders. As a result, she renounced her faith, and wrote a book entitled: “Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror.”

If this story sounds familiar, it is because virtually the same events happened at Brown in 2007. Darwish was scheduled to speak, having been invited by Brown Hillel. After protests by various student groups, primarily the Muslim Student Association, Hillel decided to withdraw funding, effectively uninviting her. Unlike Princeton and Columbia, however, Brown’s administration interceded:

“Russell Carey ‘91 MA’06, interim vice president for campus life and student services, said his office decided to sponsor the event after it was clear the speech would not go forward otherwise. ‘The whole purpose of a university is to have free and open exchange of ideas, particularly those that students initiate and develop,’ Carey said.”

Yes, from time to time, Brown gets it spot-on right. Darwish’s speech had its share of rhetorical fireworks, and not everyone in the audience took it well. However, there were many excellent, polite, and considered questions (especially, I should note, from the members of Brown’s Muslim Student’s Association). Everyone in attendance carried away a lot to think about. And no one, certainly, was worse for it.

Students, believe it or not, can handle difficult ideas. This is, after all, the virtue of intellectual diversity. Darwish has interesting and insightful ideas, even if they are controversial in some circles; Columbia and Princeton would do well to reconsider.

In FID’s discussion about the appointment of Chinua Achebe to Brown’s Department of Africana Studies, we have frequently touched upon the idea of “diversity programs”: efforts to recruit significant numbers of students from minority racial groups. I would like to extend this discussion by exploring the logic of these programs, in the context of the current economic environment.

There are, of course, important social reasons that have motivated these programs since their inception. Many universities are chartered with a “mission to their communities,” and see an important duty in helping historically under-privileged groups. This is in many ways commendable, in principle if perhaps not in implementation.

There are, too, many related economic / business reasons for these diversity programs. As admissions officers see it, many future leaders – with unique experiences, especially for young-adults at age 18 – can be found in developing communities. It has often been assumed (correctly or not) that there is a need to a “critical mass” of a given minority population, in order for that population to be comfortable, as well as “sustainable” from year-to-year.

And, finally, there is the issue of demographics: rapid growth in minority populations, and especially in the percentage of these minority populations who are, potentially, college-bound. Colleges, always eager to out-compete one another in the selectivity-driven national rankings, see a golden opportunity for an influx of new applicants.

As several board members of FID pointed out in a recent press release and editorial, Brown has fully embraced the philosophy of diversity programs. With regard just to African Americans: “Brown has a Department of Africana Studies with 14 full-faculty members — not counting seven visiting and affiliated professors. In addition, Brown has the Third World Center, the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America and the Africa Group Colloquium, and the University recently sponsored the Focus on Africa speaker series as well as the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. All are related to Africana studies.”

Much of this is a creation of very recent years, driven in conjunction with a booming endowment and significant growth of financial-aid programs, at a cost of millions of dollars per year. However, the crash of the past year has resulted in an estimated 20-25% average reduction in university endowments, nationally. (Brown was slightly worse than this average, with a 26.6% loss).

Many universities will necessarily be scaling down these efforts, needing instead to spend their dwindled reserves on core academic services. But in hiring Achebe while modestly reducing faculty elsewhere, Brown has shown that it will not.

And in this context, we can see an underlying logic: if indeed “diversity programs” contribute to successful recruitment and / or academic success for the relevant population; and if indeed at least a modest number of Brown’s peers scale back their programs (as is likely); then Brown has the potential to increase the number of its recruits, who in other years would have matriculated elsewhere. Further, Brown may see a synergy with the appointment of Achebe and its desire to expand international recruiting to Africa proper, especially, again, when its peers may be scaling back.

Of course, if all of this is true, Brown could well have hired a faculty member of equal repute to Achebe, without Achebe’s tendency to politicize his work. Channeling and cultivating post-colonial angst would not seem to lend itself well to developing future leaders; and we can no longer afford feel-good facades that gloss over substance.

One might further ask: is it not illogical — if not profoundly disrespectful — to assume that Africana Studies is the key to recruiting Africans and African-Americans? Would a black physicist or a mathematician have been less inspirational? (Does the color of the professor’s skin matter, even in this context?) If Brown is serious about recruiting continental Africans, practical knowledge of the sciences and economics would seem to be among the most valuable tools that the University could impart.

If Brown is to keep to its values, the harsh challenges of the moment demand substantive and imaginative self-reflection about what “diversity” truly means in higher education. Given what we have established regarding the social, economic, and business goals at hand, it is clear that Brown can and should do better.

Students and local Rhode Islanders held a rally on the Main Green today to protest the decision to cancel Columbus Day at Brown. The event was sponsored by the College Republicans, The Brown Spectator, and local talk radio host John DePetro. Below are excerpts by College Republican President Keith DellaGrotta. The full text of his remarks are available after the break.

When Portuguese sailors were exploring the waters of nearby Africa, Columbus set his sights high to sail west across the Atlantic. With true Italian spirit, the spirit of the Roman Empire, the spirit of the Renaissance, Columbus pursued his goals, though he was first refused funds by the king of Portugal, until he received the support of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain to begin his voyage. By way of his superb mariner skills, Columbus landed at the New World a total of four times, opening the doors for European exploration of North America.

Brown University professors and snooty Brown students cast Columbus as a barbarian while raising the American Indians on a pedestal to be honored, but I ask them what would America be without Columbus? Would the American Dream, the ideal that inspired my great-grandfather and the ideal that draws me to Brown University now, exist if it were not for Columbus?

Columbus and the Europeans brought technology to America. They brought democracy and capitalism to a patriarchic civilization. And most importantly they brought Christianity to a land of multiple gods and human sacrifice. Brown University and the Far Left like it are ashamed of America and its white, European background, but the values and the principles that Columbus, and the Europeans that followed, brought to America are the reason for her current political and economic success. Is this no reason enough for a holiday?

Without Columbus there would be no British explorers. Without Columbus there would be no Pilgrims and Puritans. Without Columbus there would be no common law. Without Columbus there would be no Great Awakening. There would be no Thirteen Colonies. There would be no Tea Party. There would be no American Revolution.

To read his full remarks click below.

When I decided to attend Brown University, I was at the same time deciding to return to the city of my surname roots – DellaGrotta. While a cook for the Italian army, my great grandfather decided he wanted to try his luck in America and emigrated to Providence, RI at the turn of the twentieth century. His wife followed him a few years later. In Providence, he settled on none other than Federal Hill and established a grocery store there.

As we all know, life was not easy for Italian immigrants in the early 1900s but Great-Grandpa Francesco refused any handouts and he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. Though he and his family initially lived in an apartment with five other families and only one bathroom, he worked long hours at his grocery store and learned English to provide for his wife and three boys, including my grandfather. As a result of my great-grandfather’s support and care, my Grandpa Guerino became the first of the DellaGrottas to attend college.

Two generations later I stand here on the lawn of Brown University because of the labor of my ancestors before me. All this made possible through the dedication of the DellaGrotta family in pursuing the American Dream. The American Dream – the belief that through devoted effort and some talent one can achieve happiness and success – was originally made possible by a group of British dissenters, our Founding Fathers. Why did the American colonists happen to be on this side of the Atlantic? As a direct result of European colonization. And who initiated European colonization of the New World? Another Italian by the name of Christopher Columbus.

My great-grandfather would be ashamed of Providence’s most prestigious university and its slight against Italians. As the ultimate politically correct move, the naïve, arrogant, haughty, foolish Brown faculty last year decided to side with American Indians, less than one percent of Brown’s student body, and change the name of Columbus Day Weekend to Fall Weekend. Out of complete disrespect for America…the fact that Columbus Day has been celebrated since 1792 and has been a national holiday for over thirty years…and out of complete disrespect for the DellaGrotta family and other Americans of Italian descent in the area, Brown University is attempting to rewrite history by refusing to honor Columbus as the intellect he was. We gather here today to show we will not let this happen. Columbus the hero will live on!

When Portuguese sailors were exploring the waters of nearby Africa, Columbus set his sights high to sail west across the Atlantic. With true Italian spirit, the spirit of the Roman Empire, the spirit of the Renaissance, Columbus pursued his goals, though he was first refused funds by the king of Portugal, until he received the support of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain to begin his voyage. By way of his superb mariner skills, Columbus landed at the New World a total of four times, opening the doors for European exploration of North America.

Brown University professors and snooty Brown students cast Columbus as a barbarian while raising the American Indians on a pedestal to be honored, but I ask them what would America be without Columbus? Would the American Dream, the ideal that inspired my great-grandfather and the ideal that draws me to Brown University now, exist if it were not for Columbus?

Columbus and the Europeans brought technology to America. They brought democracy and capitalism to a patriarchic civilization. And most importantly they brought Christianity to a land of multiple gods and human sacrifice. Brown University and the Far Left like it are ashamed of America and its white, European background, but the values and the principles that Columbus, and the Europeans that followed, brought to America are the reason for her current political and economic success. Is this no reason enough for a holiday?

Without Columbus there would be no British explorers. Without Columbus there would be no Pilgrims and Puritans. Without Columbus there would be no common law. Without Columbus there would be no Great Awakening. There would be no Thirteen Colonies. There would be no Tea Party. There would be no American Revolution.

United States GDP tops that of the world. The United States donates more foreign aid than any other country. America scores in the top 10 percent worldwide for least corruption. America harbors two of the top three and thirteen of the top twenty universities globally. The personal responsibility, the respect for life, the family values, the care for others, and the freedom promoted by Christianity generate these impressive statistics. The American Dream is a Christian dream, like Jesus’ parable of the talents in the Gospel of Matthew, and Columbus was the first to utter our Lord, Christ, in America.

Secular universities like Brown seek to diminish the importance of Christianity in the history of the United States. But they will never win that battle. Our Founding Fathers were devout Christians and alluded to it in the Declaration of Independence, that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” America’s Christianity is portrayed on our currency – “In God we Trust,” it is displayed within our courtrooms – The Ten Commandments, it is uttered in our Pledge of Allegiance – “one nation, under God.”

American Indians knew not Christianity and thus lacked the bedrock to construct a great United States of America as we know it today. Columbus, however, was the saving grace. The Brown faculty and Brown American Indians may dislike it and they are trying to conceal it, but Columbus put in motion America’s European colonization and thus her ascension to greatness…and for this we respect him through Columbus Day!