Roger's Mailbag

Reader Philip Barnard writes:

re your Feb 19 piece on Bloch and Carlson.

I enjoy your blog generally, but I really have to object to the "University of Kansas and Bush Administration" headline! The entire university is likened to the Bush Administration because two right wingers went here (and left here! Gee, wonder why he's at Casper and not the U of Kansas....)? Really, I don't see the logic.

Obviously one can find right wing extremists at any university. Why pick on us? If you'd like to find out about the University of Kansas and the kind of intellectual work that's done here, I'd be happy to try and give you a little information. In intellectual and ideological terms you can find as many or more egregious right wingers at private, so-called "elite" institutions, if you care to go looking.

Don't public universities get enough misinformed pounding from the right in the culture wars?

I agree with you completely about these two characters, but how their extremism reflects on the U of Kansas escapes me.

Mr. Barnard is right. There was no basis for my swipe at the University of Kansas, and no reason to blame the U of K for the extremism of Bloch and Carlson. I stand corrected.