When Did the National Post Become a Student Paper?

Now publicizing non-existent dangers on a campus near you.

The Mark Newsroom likes the National Post. While we don’t always agree with them, there are a lot of wonderfully intelligent writers working over there.

But a trend has emerged at the Post that is, frankly, inexplicable. The paper’s pundits have begun writing angrily about the opinions expressed by university students and organizations, running opinion pieces about U of T grad student Jennifer Peto’s master’s thesis on Jewish victimhood, a recent “Israeli apartheid” event, a Ryerson event about the “Gaza Massacre,” and today a teach-in protesting billionaire Peter Munk’s financial involvement with U of T. All of this, presumably, to point out that universities are hotbeds of wacky left-wing activism. Stop the presses.

Whatever you think about the arguments the Post makes in these pieces, what we can’t figure out is why they’re so worked up about campus affairs. It certainly can’t be because these events and theses are influential. The idea that U of T will stop taking Munk’s money is laughable and Canada is a more resolute defender of Israel than ever. Nor are our schools raising a generation of radicals. Like millions of student activists before them, the majority of people attending these events will grow up, get jobs, and look back fondly on their wild college days spent railing against the man.

If the Post’s objection is that taxpayer money is going towards these institutions, well tough. The whole point of academia is to explore ideas, no matter how controversial. If all scholarly pursuits that lack broad popular support are de-funded, God help us.

And it’s the potential interference in academia that is so troubling about the Post’s stories. Had it not been for the Post’s coverage of Peto’s thesis, it would have been left to collect dust on a library shelf, as deserved. Instead, the Post-generated uproar led to the disgraceful spectacle of Ontario lawmakers standing up at Queen’s Park and denouncing Peto, despite admitting that they had never read her paper.

Yes, university students and organizations are often high on sanctimony and low on perspective. But that’s something the school paper should be telling us, not the Post.