"Better a bleeding heart than none at all"

I saw that on a bumper sticker recently (next to an Ole decal). For my fellow Mac-ites and other interested parties, here is a Katherine Kersten rant about the alma. I actually agree with her basic premise (it really would be helpful if conservative viewpoints were included in the debate over there), but find it poorly argued and rather hypocritical coming from someone who was hired solely to write a politically one-sided column.

I particularly enjoyed:

• Basing the "good old days" reference on one 60 year-old guy's memory of an event that took place over 40 years ago
• The idea that an American studies department that focuses ("overwhelmingly") on race, gender and ethnic minorities is closed-minded (I'm sorry, has she read standard history texts? It's not like people are hurting for knowledge of white male political/war history).
• The whole sentence: "Religious holidays are still respected at Macalester, but the concept has expanded." Isn't that the definition of open-minded?
• Taking the president's comment, "We work hard to see that the college is a safe place for all reasonable points of view to be expressed" to mean he does not value greater intellectual diversity.

She tried to argue the "Macalester is too closed-minded" point, but really only had support for the unspoken "Macalester is an easy target because it affirms everything I'm paid to write against" point. Anyway, it's too bad she so thoroughly distorted this Peterson guy's valid case for improving academics by promoting intellectual diversity.