College, Anyone?

"Strange as it seems, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and higher education positively fortifies it." Stephen Vizinczey

I have been reading for a while now a columnist, Mike Adams (from townhall.com) and he talks often of some of the ridiculous speech codes that some colleges have in place. Basically, the speech code tries to "protect" students from being offended. This, of course, goes against the Constitution and free speech rights. Inherant in the right to free speech is that some will be offended. There is, arguably, some reasonable restrictions to some types of speech in some types of "speech" (ie.. yelling fire, pornography...) .

Anyway, what largely ends up happening is a form of discrimination against a particular type of student. Usually a Christian or other socially conservative person (maybe a Young Republican).

I remember a time in my speech class in college to encourage the open dialogue of non-as-important issues. We were told to give a quick 2-minute speech. We were then given a list of "unacceptable" topics (abortion, same-sex marriage, and a few other fairly important social issues).

Now, I am fully aware that that is hardly enough time to come up with enough information to make a real case for or against any of the issues, but it seems that a speech class would be a good forum for developing good speaking skills about important topics, but it was an example of this "stupidity" that many universities encourage by their inability (or unwillingness) to address the hot button topics with a degree of maturity and mutual respect.

What do you think-Is Vizinczey way off base? If learning cannot"cure stupidity", what can?

Derrick