Comments on Quick Takes: Missouri State Settles Student Complaint, Attempted Pie Attack on David Horowitz, Students Fight Over 'Pledge' at Orange Coast

• Hilarious
• Posted by TA on November 10, 2006 at 10:10am EST

• 'While religious overtones were one element of the trustees' motivation, other concerns existed. "Nationalism is something that divides people," said Ball, wearing black boots, a beret and a hammer-and-sickle pin.'

  Am I the only one who finds this paragraph from the article about Orange Coast hilarious. Ball seems to have taken a part in a very divisive stance on the issue. Oh that's right I forgot, it's only divisive if you disagree with it.

• Mmmmm! Pie!
• Posted by Hattie , correctional educator on November 10, 2006 at 10:00pm EST

• Horowitz's job was to make good conservatives out of college students. He has failed. Scaife et al may fire him. He'll have to start eating those pies people throw at him every time he appears in public.

• Posted by Jack Olson on November 11, 2006 at 4:00pm EST

• Where do college students learn that the way to refute anybody they disagree with is to throw food at him? At Ball State University, which put a professor of music in charge of teaching Peace and Conflict.

  Also, at Butler; where Horowitz was attacked in similar fashion last year. Also, at Arizona State, where a student did the same to Ann Coulter two years ago.

  In the latest incident, protestors ordered a dozen pizzas in Horowitz's name and asked that they be delivered to the site where he was scheduled to speak.

  I expect the administrations of these colleges to denounce these infantile antics, which after all are committed only by a few boors. But, if they mean what they say, then the solution is immediate, permanent expulsion of the culprits for the disgrace they brought on their college. No probation. No re-enrollment, ever. Out and stay out, and don't ask us to send a copy of your transcript anywhere because we already shredded it.

  If these colleges fail to teach some of their students or if those students fail to learn that throwing pastries is an inept reply to an idea one objects to, then there is no reason for such students to continue their academic careers at colleges where they have obviously learned few valuable ideas and have contributed even fewer.

• A pie for Horowitz
• Posted by Nancy on November 12, 2006 at 1:20pm EST

• What if the students object to Horowitz's very presence on their campus, not solely his ideas? Horowitz says so little that can be debated, because his statements are so far from evidence-based, that trying to engage him makes little sense. If the point is to attract attention to the presence of a man who descends on campuses to attack the process of education, then a pie is as good a way as any to accomplish that goal. It is highly visual and immediately communicates to anyone seeing a brief clip.

  Why should Horowitz be treated like someone with ideas when he does not treat others that way? Why should he be legitimized as anything other than a destructive force wherever he visits, someone to be rejected because he has no place at a campus podium? Trivializing the students' clear message by calling them names (such as spoiled children) fails to deal with their complaint that such a man was ever given the privilege (not right) of speaking on their campus.

• Other options are available
• Posted by David on November 13, 2006 at 9:20am EST

• Nancy,

  I would think that throwing a pie at someone trivializes the message and is in itself name calling.

  But of course if I didn't agree with someone who as invited to speak on my campus I would just not attend. Or perhaps complain to the invitation committee. But that approach lacks the maturity of a pie in the face.