Americans may be divided on the issue of abortion but the higher education establishment doesn’t appear to be. And the higher up you go in the Ivory Tower, the greater the support for abortion seems to be. “Residents at the Yale School of Medicine, required to have abortion training unless they have religious or moral objections, now take a six-week course in abortion techniques at a Planned Parenthood of Connecticut (PPC) facility, according to Yale Daily News,” Liz Townsend reports in the National Right to Life News. “The collaboration between Yale and PPC began in 2005, when professors realized that the residents were performing ‘too few’ abortions at Yale-New Haven Hospital, the Daily News reported.”

“At PPC’s Whitney Street abortion clinic, ‘they are trained in both vacuum aspiration and medication abortion procedures,’ according to Planned Parenthood’s Choice! magazine, along with other clinic ‘services.’”

Ferreting out Disabilities

More than a decade and a half ago, nervous White House lawyers worried that if President Bush (41) did not sign the Americans with Disabilities Act, “kids and cripples” would surround the Executive Office. Now, 15 years later, the ADA, like many mammoth federal laws, has gone well beyond its original intent. “Sarah B. Sevick considers her pet ferret, Lilly, to be a service animal, no less legitimate than a guide dog,” Kelly Field reports in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “True, the support Lilly provides is emotional, rather than physical, but that does not change her status under
the law, Ms. Sevick reasons.”

“So Ms. Sevick, who suffers from anxiety and depression, was surprised when
administrators at Our Lady of the Lake University, in Texas, told her she
could not bring Lilly to the campus because the ferret did not qualify as a
service animal.” For now, the ADA defines service animals narrowly as “any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.”

However, most of the ADA has been defined by litigation, which Ms. Sevick is threatening to bring. “Convinced the college was wrong, she filed a complaint with
the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division last August, asking that
the administrators’decision be overturned,” Field reported. “‘They didn’t understand,’ says Ms. Sevick.”

“‘I couldn’t just have a panic attack and say, See, she is helping me.”

Is this a good idea?

Washington and Lee University is offering a course in “The Politics and Science of Weapons of Mass Destruction. “Students begin this course by planning a terrorist attack on the United States,” Samantha Henig writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education. “The plan must be detailed, down to the specifics of the equipment and chemicals needed to make the weapons.”

“By teaching the science behind weapons of mass destruction, alongside the history of their role in international affairs, the course seeks to offer a deeper understanding of current events.”

New threats to campus conservatives?

How hazardous can it be to be a conservative on campus? Nate Nelson of the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh does not want to find out.

“An anonymous emailer has threatened the lives of a conservative student leader and his wife at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh,” according to the Leadership Institute. “Nate Nelson, the student leader, and his wife, Kelly, received the email on Tuesday, September 27.”

“‘Quit with your political bulls–t before I kill you and your wife,’ the emailer wrote.” Campus police are investigating the allegation, LI representatives say.

Drag Racing Off Campus

In a more innocent day and age, drag racing usually involved cars but recently, students from George Washington University got to see drag queens run a lap down 17th Street, NW, just a few blocks from the Foggy Bottom campus. “This is my favorite thing that happens in D. C.,” senior Katie Harter told the GW Hatchet’s Cassandra Many.

“I can’t believe this,” junior Turner Payne told Many. “All these men have tighter butts and nicer legs than I do.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.

Carnival Time

Not content to just stage a production of the hit Eve Ensler play that has become a Valentine’s Day staple on many campuses, the Women Students Association at the University of South Carolina at Columbia is holding a carnival celebrating the unique female body part. “Students will be able to finger paint in vagina coloring books, sample vagina-themed baked goods and buy T-shirts and tickets for ‘The Vagina Monologues,’” according to the USC-Columbia student newspaper, The Gamecock.

Although the carnival is set for the weekend before Valentine’s Day, the festival may not come off at all. Many on campus were unaware of the event, including USC-Columbia’s president. He learned of it through his congressman.

Both congressional representative and school chief were shocked by the program at a university heavily dependent on government funding. The Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the College Republicans at USC-Columbia were surprised by the event as well.

Although this is the first time USC-Columbia has held such a carnival, the school has showcased the Ensler play in all of the preceding three school years. Such productions occur regularly at colleges and universities, even at Catholic institutions of higher learning. In January, signs posted all over campus at Georgetown University read, “If your vagina could talk, it would tell you to audition for The Vagina Monologues.”

Last year, at Georgetown, young ladies sat at tables placed strategically on campus with signs that read “vagina” either above or below them and arrows pointing at themselves as a means of drawing attention to the upcoming production.

Adopt-a-Sniper orphaned

When the College Republicans at Marquette University chose a theme for its campaign to send supplies to U. S. troops abroad in the Middle East, the group chose an attention-getting one: the Adopt a Sniper program. “The program directly benefits the men on the front lines, who use this material to eliminate terrorists and protect the lives of other American troops and innocent Iraqi civilians,” Marquette CR chairman Brandon Henak said.

“Donations taken at the CR table are sent to the foundation [Adopt a Sniper], which is run by U. S.-based law enforcement and retired military,” a release from the Marquette GOPers explained. “These officers buy highly-specialized sniper equipment, including unique body armor, flashlights, and tactical gear that military procurement does not always provide.”

Mark McCarthy, the Dean of the Office of Student Development, shut down the table. “This fundraising activity does not comport to the University’s mission,” McCarthy stated.

A Catholic university located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Marquette is run by the Jesuit order of priests. Controversial Senator Joseph R. McCarthy graduated from Marquette after serving with the U. S. Marines during World War II.

“If Marquette is serious about its Catholic values, perhaps they can start by ending the scandal of granting University honors to pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage politicians and dissident theologians who directly perpetuate heresies to our student body,” Henak observed.

NYU: Losers Wanted

A variation of the “Those who can’t do, teach” phenomenon can be found in the multitude of unsuccessful Democratic politicians who find a haven in academia. The latest politico to hit the faculty lounge is Robert H. Shrum, late of the Kerry presidential campaign, who will become a senior fellow at New York University.

“Shrum racked up his eighth straight loss in an unblemished 0-8 record of losing Democratic presidential campaigns,” columnist Ann Coulter noted in one of her post-election post-mortems. “He’s the embodiment of the Democratic Party ideal: Screw up, keep getting hired or promoted.”

“One more loss and his last name officially becomes a verb, as in ‘we were ahead by 6 points but we ended up shrumming.’”

Look for the union-free label

An intriguing ad in the Education Week classifieds notes prominently, proudly even, that North Babylon is a “union free school district” seeking a school superintendent. Located in the Long Island suburbs of New York City, North Babylon is not in a right-to-work state.