Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Steven Hayward and The State of the Union



Illustration of Steven Hayward by Julian Puckett

Steve Hayward is the University of Colorado Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy.  It’s a title that smacks of academia and the attendant disdain, but it is a good thing for Colorado.

CU seems to acknowledge that conservative thought isn’t going away gently into the night.  The university has enlisted Dr. Hayward to teach undergraduate classes in the College of Arts and Sciences.  I imagine his classes are instructive and entertaining.

While not mentioned in the biographical information noted above, Dr. Hayward has roots in California (San Luis Obispo) and in the blogging community.  He regularly contributes articles to Power Line and has a particularly interesting post today.

Steve’s article highlights Kurt Vonnegut and the work of Bret Stephens.  The reference to Kurt Vonnegut is his short story “Harrison Bergeron.”  The reference to Bret Stephens is his column in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Stephens uses his column to predict the content of president Obama’s State of the Union address this evening.  He focuses on the equality theme that is sure to dominate the president’s remarks.

Dr. Hayward senses the historical impact, and provides background and visual context in the form of a trailer from Chandler Tuttle’s film.

This year’s State of the Union just might be an awakening for Americans!

UPDATE 4/4/2014:
Professor Hayward gets to experience those feelings of minority status so frequently visited upon Republicans.  The Chairman of the Boulder Faculty Assembly (Paul Chinowsky), the President of CU Student Government Student Affairs (Chris Schaefbauer) and the Director of Safety and Inclusion for CU Student Government (Caitlin Pratt) call out Dr. Hayward for not building a community where everyone is comfortable in the classroom, creating power dynamics where it is difficult for victims to express feelings of discomfort over unwelcome conduct, and failing to support all members of the university community.  They cite Dr. Hayward as being representative of a larger problem at CU where the rights of women (and LGBTQ individuals) are denied, dissected and refuted.  They declare that Dr. Hayward is bigoted and makes comments that border on hate speech.

They characterize their statements as being representative of the students and faculty at the University of Colorado and that the University of Colorado must never allow this behavior.  Dr. Hayward must be cast out!

This is what is "right and natural' at the University of Colorado.