Laurie Taylor Column

Vice-chancellors are ignoring evidence of campus extremism - report from the Social Affairs Unit . The Times Higher, October 14

Welcome to the Extremism Committee. Apologies for Absence. Mrs Dilworth?

We have an apology from Professor Gibbons. He is under house arrest for having admitted an extreme behaviourist to his cognitive psychology course.

Thank you. Now, minutes of the last meeting. Professor Rucking?

Might I refer to Minute 261a/05. This notes that we blacklisted Dr Bannerjee of economics for claiming in a recent lecture that the bursar was "an agent of managerial capitalism". I believe the phrase was "a tool of managerial capitalism".

Thank you. Anything else? No? So that takes us straight to item one: a report from our investigative sub-committee, the Committee for Un-Campus Activities. Professor Comstock...

Thank you, vice-chancellor. I'm pleased to report that the committee has imposed a further seven orders. Three second-year sociology students have been banned from campus for their insistence that the working class should be encouraged to rise up and overthrow capitalism, and two overseas politics students have been recommended for deportation because of their recent seminar assertion that the invasion of Iraq was an example of "fascist imperialism". Meanwhile, on the staff side, we have censured Dr Turpitz from biology for taking an extremist anti-creationist line in his evolution lectures and given a second warning to Professor Gumbril of philosophy for his persistent and extreme scepticism about the existence of the real world.

Anything more?

Just one small development, vice-chancellor. It was felt that our sub-committee should take a more proactive role and we have therefore established a task force of moderate academics that will actively seek out examples of campus extremism.

An excellent move. And you have a name for this task force?

We were thinking along the lines of "Thought Police".

What else?