And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

... that The University of Iowa had an outstanding public relations weekend November 14-15.
The school's football team won its tenth in a row in a night game on nationwide television, and that morning the wrestling team beat its top ranked opponent in an outdoor meet in the same football stadium, which drew a record crowd for a wrestling event.
To add the icing to the cake, both university basketball teams, men and women, won two games each.
Contrast that, if you will, to what was taking place at some other institutions of "higher" learning.
At the University of Missouri, when the football team joined protests of some black students, two administrators agreed to resign their posts, although neither admitted any "guilt."
But students, augmented by adult volunteers from other racial protests, said they wanted more ... for "white privilege" apologies. The father of one of the student leaders allegedly earned over eight million dollars last year, and has a home worth three times that of billionaire Buffett in the same city. Who is privileged?
Proving my grandmother's adage that Missouri loves company (or was that misery?) several northeast colleges, including some from the Ivy League and what was once know as their companion Seven Sisters, protested Halloween costumes on campus and lack of a "quiet" spot where they could contemplate their navels and not have to listen to diverse views. Diversity of race and sexual preference are welcome, but not diversity of ideas. One female student said she was sick and tired of hearing about the First Amendment... the same amendment which was allowing her to voice her ideas!
Those elite colleges with students afraid of the bogeyman at Halloween are the spoiled brats whom one of the leaders of communism in Russia said are necessary for the movement's success. He termed them "useful idiots."
It has been said those efforts are more public relations than protests.
Perhaps as proof, an article in the Des Moines Register attempted to compare the situation at Missouri with the one at Iowa City, with a university union official "demanding" that the new university president, whom they oppose, hold an open meeting where "everyone" could "speak openly" about the matter.
Like that would solve anything any more than the female Missouri journalism faculty member asking for "muscle" to help her get rid of a pesky reporter who was invading her space.
An article in USA Today suggests the media are guilty of paying too much attention to these mainly teenage or young twenties people, whose brains, studies show, are not yet fully formed.
I can attest to that. As a university freshman, I paid dues to Young Democrats. Never mind that I was "sold" by a blonde in my American Lit class!