I spoke at Rutgers University Wednesday night to a crowd of about seventy-five. If you recall, Rutgers was recently the site of a massive newspaper theft of a humor publication that had offended campus feminists. The school's reputation is left-wing, but I encountered an audience quite receptive to my message and departed with an empty book box.

The conservative student publication at the school, The Centurion, has run into some trouble of its own. You see, they have no faculty advisor because they haven't found a single professor who will agree do it. Think I'm joking? The Centurion recently researched the Federal Election Commission's reports on the recent election, and found that for every $1 Rutgers employees gave to George W. Bush, they gave $104 to John Kerry.

"I'm a Marxist, a socialist, a feminist, and a pragmatic postmodernist," admits History Professor James Livingston, until recently the paper's advisor. Livingston, despite obvious political disagreements with The Centurion, initially agreed to be the paper's advisor--but at the cost of the publication giving him a page in each issue to air his thoughts. This didn't work out, and the two parties have gone their separate ways.

While there's nothing wrong with student groups having a faculty advisor, requiring one seems in some cases discriminatory--at least at a place like Rutgers, where campaign giving for the Democrats' presidential candidate outpaced giving to the Republican by a factor of more than one-hundred. For even the Marxist, socialist, feminist, pragmatic postmodernist former faculty advisor of The Centurion admits: "By now we all know that the pilot disciplines in the Arts & Sciences are dominated by leftists of one kind or another."

I doubt Rutgers requires the paper to have a faculty advisor. They only need an advisor if they plan on being funded by the school. If you accept the school's money then you have to play by their rules.

If a faculty advisor is required (or required for university funding), and no professor will agree to advise, how is that not discriminatory?

That Livingston would only advise if he were allowed to write columns that explicitly contradict the stated mission of the paper is outrageous. How many other school papers are subject to such a condition?

Are the Left's ideas so weak that they cannot withstand competition? That seems to be Rutger's position.

The Rurgers College Republicans exist and were able to get Dan Flynn on campus. Starting a conservative paper probably doesn't require much more than that feat did. If the people running the paper can't do it then they must be doing something wrong. Hell, they could probably even substitute alumni for faculty.

"Hell, they could probably even substitute alumni for faculty."

Pretty insightful for a Jedi. Do you really suppose they would have used Livingston as their advisor if any of the thousands of conservative alumni would have sufficed?

It's very simple. If having a faculty advisor is required, and no faculty member will agree to advise because of ideological differences, the paper is being discriminated against.

No doubt they haven't asked all the faculty or even half. It is beyond belief that can't find just one apathetic professor who will sign anything. Most likely they haven't been looking very hard. Who is the faculty advisor advising the CRs? I went to a college that was a lot more leftist than Rutgers and we had no problem getting a faculty advisor for things.

I'm a member of the Rutgers CRs, and let me tell you, the Centurion asked every single professor in the history and poli sci departments. Livingston was the last one left to ask, and he said yes.

Now with him referring to the Centurion's staff (conservatives of course) as "clueless" in his blog, they have gone their separate ways. Who is left when none of the people who should be interested in political diversity are willing to advise?

I'm sure the staff of the Centurion is still looking, but don't you DARE claim they aren't working hard enough to find someone. You don't understand the level of hostility here.

At your school that is supposed to be more leftist than Rutgers, did anyone ever go up to a table where the CRs were signing people up, scream at the two girls behind it, and then FLIP the table onto them? Because that happened here just a little while ago.

After the election, on Nov 3, they hosted a candelight vigil entitled "The Death of Humanity" to mourn Kerry's loss.

How much more leftist can you get?

There's your problem right there. Why limit yourself to the polisci and history departments?

"How much more leftist can you get?"

-How about dumping gallons of goats blood on the student union steps, during a CR sponsored event.

-Or suggesting that all buildings over 5 stories be removed from campus because of their "fallic" nature. Only to be replaced w/ subterranean structures resembling underground cylinders. In an attempt to represent the female reproductive organ.

-Fear of entering a rest room in the library. Due to the strong possibility of witnessing homosexual acts.

Just a taste of Umass in the 90's.

Nobody said that the Centurion was limiting themselves to the polisci and history departments. I just said that that is the most logical place to look, and that was where they found their last advisor, the Marxist, feminist etc.

I also said that it's ridiculous when the very professors who should be helping this kind of political publication refuse to get involved.

I'm sure they're looking at other departments, but somehow I doubt an English professor will be all that interested in advising a political publication.

Hopefully they'll find someone though.

Joenormal...wow. That is some ridiculous stuff right there. That beats anything I've witnessed.

Obi Juan is clueless to quote the feminist, socialist, Marxist "genius" who served as their first "advisor", and I use that term ironically.

The almost certain reason why The Centurion can't get a faculty advisor is because Stalinism and the quaking fear of Big Brother reprisals that could lose someone their job and livlihood are what a faculty member risks when volunteering to assist a conservative group on campus. Can't you guys see that? I'm amazed at the myopia.

The Centurion has probably already burned all their bridges by publishing and thus "outing" Republican faculty members when they put out their pdf. listing the political donations of Rutgers faculty and staff. That by itself has made a few GOP donors in the faculty, no doubt catatonic and insomniacal about that knock in the middle of the night they're no doubt awaiting with chattering teeth.

Post-Modern Academe at Rutgers or just about anywhere has long since stopped being a place of objective inquiry and with the P.C. Stalinists in total control now reigns as an Orwellian re-education camp reminiscent of Mao's camps during the Cultural Revolution.

It's too bad that at least one tenured Republican on campus can't forego his cowardice of ostracism at the wine and cheese receptions and do his duty to the only intelligent group of students on campus whose parents are paying his meal ticket to have some balls and do just that. I won't hold my breath. Rutgers might as well be North Korea for all the dissent you're going to find expressed there.