I have read a number of Trib stories recently outlining controversies over local school districts’ curricula. There has been criticism of parents’ efforts to prevent the use of materials deemed by them as not appropriate for their children. This has been decried as “censorship” equivalent to book burnings by liberals saying that children should have the opportunity to be exposed to different beliefs or alternate histories of America.

Per the article “Saint Vincent policy reins in speakers, approval process needed” (April 19, TribLIVE), Saint Vincent College has taken the opposite approach. Based on comments by guest speaker David Azerrad, a highly respected assistant professor and research fellow at Hillsdale College, all speakers must now have prior approval by school authorities who were apparently cowed into submission by people who were offended by the speaker’s comments.

The hypocrisy of a certain element of our society could not be more blatantly apparent. Children, in their formative years (years when they are most receptive to outside influence, i.e. grooming), are to be considered capable of consuming and understanding any ideas, be they pornography, hate for one’s race, etc., put before them, but adults at Saint Vincent seem to be too easily damaged to hear and evaluate on their own what a speaker has to say. Azerrad was identified as a “conservative.”

Apparently ideas, thought and free speech are, like beauty, in the eyes of the beholder, and if you are on the wrong side of the beholder, you’re out.

Sheila R. Krill

Murrysville

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