Inky reader J.U. e-mails to comment on the required “Gender and Sexuality” course for undergrads currently under proposal at the University of Michigan, the state’s flagship public institution of higher learning (see Mandatory Campus Sex, Dec. 9):
“On a small side matter, though, you mention your surprise that Michigan’s taxpayers would be willing to sponsor a university that has so openly embraced a worldview completely divorced from the state’s mainstream. It is worth pointing out that U.M. is much more a private institution than a public one at this point. Only a modest fraction of the university’s money comes from the state, and for some time now, U.M. has accepted a much larger proportion of out-of-state students than most flagship state universities. This has all been part of a reasonably conscious effort to divorce UM from the state of Michigan. Similar efforts are under way in Virgina and, more modestly, here in North Carolina.”
Hmm, perhaps it’s time for Michigan’s taxpayers to go all the way and cut the umbilical cord so that U.M. faculty and administrators can indoctrinate students to “break stigmas and taboos” (that’s the language of the course’s description) to their hearts’ content–but on the private, not the public dime.