A FOLLOW UP

A follow up to an earlier post over the removal of symbolic crosses at a fake cemetary at Northern Kentucky University. From the Opinion Journal.

Three Cheers for NKU
"A professor who led students in destroying an anti-abortion display at Northern Kentucky University has been placed on leave for the remaining week and a half of classes," the Cincinnati Enquirer reports:

Other faculty will step in to cover Sally Jacobsen's four courses in the literature and language department. At the end of the semester, she will retire--a step she had been planning to take months before last week's controversy, officials said.

We noted the case Friday. NKU's president, James Votruba, put out a strong statement:

One of the important roles that a university must play is to be a forum for debate and analysis concerning the important issues of the day. Often these issues are surrounded by strident rhetoric and strong emotions, which makes it even more incumbent on the university to create and nurture an intellectual environment in which reason and evidence prevail and where all points of view can be heard.

Northern Kentucky University has a distinguished record of addressing important public issues in a balanced way. We are proud that, as a campus, we are not the captive of one ideology or point of view. At their best, universities are not places of comfortable conformity. They are places where ideas collide as students and faculty search for deeper understandings and perspectives.

While the University supports the right to free speech and vigorous debate on public issues, we cannot condone infringement of the rights of others to express themselves in an orderly manner.

Many presidents of more prestigious schools could learn a lot from Votruba.