Crash the Eagle

I find this stunning: [1] a great American institution of higher learning, Washington University in St. Louis, is giving Phyllis Schlafly an honorary degree.

Others will make the make the argument that this is obscene because of Schlafly historic engagement with insane conspiracy theories, and this will be a perfectly reasonable argument. (When I interviewed Schlafly for my Goldwater book, she mentioned something offhand about the Bilderbergers [2]. I didn't know what that meant. She explained that it was a retreat where the elites got together and decided how to rule the world. I'm not kidding. She said this. I have it on tape. Proud of yourself, Washington University?)

Others will make the argument that this is obscene because Schlafly has spent the last several decades working full-time—working overtime, in fact—fighting other women's rights to work full time. And this will be a perfectly reasonable argument, too.

Others will make the argument that this is obscene because Schlafly is a right-wing extremist. This is not such a reasonable argument; I can think of several [3] right-wing extremists [4] who, on the strength of their intellectual accomplishments, deserve honorary degrees.

No, my argument that this is obscene is that, except in the case of fiction authors, great American institutions of higher learning should not bestow honorary degrees on people who habitually make things up. One of the most famous was that, if the Equal Rights Amendment was passed, "men's restrooms" and "women's restrooms" would be outlawed, and men and women would all have to go to the bathroom together. There others; there still are—she probably hasn't gone a day without lying in her entire adult life. (Her latest lie is that Barack Obama is propounding a global tax [5].)

Here's a passage on the Phyllis Schlafly Report in NIXONLAND [6]:

"This Amendment will absolutely and positively make women subject to the draft," he subscribers learned. It would license a man to "demand that his wife go to work to help pay for family expenses.... The women's liberals are radicals who are waging total assault on the family, on marriage, and on children."

Washington University, I'd only ask you this: is there any intellectual standard below which you'd not be willing to fall?

Want to organize against this bastardization of the degrees of the hardworking students of Wash U? Click here. [7]