Remember when Hampshire removed the American flag after Trump won in 2016? Could the school’s politics be part of their problem?
Greg Piper writes at the College Fix:
It took down the flag after Trump’s election. It opposes ‘intense debate.’ Its freshman class is 15 students.If you need an object lesson in the financial perils of wokeness for colleges, look no further than Hampshire College in Massachusetts.It got on the national radar after Donald Trump’s election, when the private liberal arts school responded to campus unrest by removing the American flag (among others) from campus. Then-President Jonathan Lash said it was an impediment to “addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors.”He doubled down when criticized, saying the American flag’s presence interfered with the ability of students to express themselves. Everyone who is not delusional correctly recognizes that the flag symbolizes our constitutional right to express ourselves – even when we burn it. (The flag was flown again after two weeks.)A year later, Lash’s administration canceled a speech by a gun-rights activist – two hours before its scheduled start – because the sponsor hadn’t disclosed it might provoke “intense debate.”Lash didn’t last, and Hampshire might not, either.We told you in February that the unconventional college – which has no grades, no majors and no test scores it will consider in applications – was on the brink of financial collapse and might lose its accreditation. One statistic illustrates just how much trouble it’s in:Fifteen.That’s the number of incoming students who have enrolled in the fall term, according to an eye-opening profile in The Boston Globe. Last year’s class was 290 students. Hampshire has lost more than half its usual enrollment for all classes, leaving around 600 students on campus.
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