Jacob Bond was treated unfairly by the football coaches who were backed up by the administration. That part of your column was interesting and well documented.

I understand your concern about how Macalester has changed. But most of what Prof. Rachleff says is just jargon. A look at Macalester's web site suggesst that it remains what it always has been. A good liberal arts college that serves a relatively elite group of students.

But the bigger point is this, are other liberal arts colleges that have frats and strong sports programs guilty of trying to "conventional masculinity" and destroy the arts? What is wrong with a small college emphasizing a sports program as part of an approach to liberal education?

Hey Dave,
Really enjoyed this column but something stuck out like a sore thumb. Wasn't Physics for Poets part of a Patton Oswalt routine from a few years back? I'm sure it could be a coincidence because I do think you're a creative guy, but it seemed a little too close for comfort... just wondering?

z... just checking in. the edge lives! "from an institution for intelligent outcasts to a quiet preserve of privilege." sounds like friends seminary. or the lower east side. or fire island.

...no frats, lots of fiery debates, and a sports program that was at times regarded as a rumor." Dave forgot to add a follow-up sentence: "...Not to mention a student body that shared an unequivocal demonization of Israel; the blanket support of all minorities regardless of debatable issues like crime, immigration and welfare; and the consistent denigration of Judeo-Christian beliefs, save for staying away from criticizing any problematic behavior exhibited by, say, Islam."

Face it, Zirin, you and your Macalester etcetera Leftist ilk are FAR from the standard-bearers of "critical thinking" or the epitomes of "questioning conventionality" that Rachleff condemns Macalaster of failing to live up to. In fact, you are no different from those "hyper-masculine" frat boys and "military regimen[ted]" NCAA Division 1 sports that you see so fit to condemn. You are just the other side of the same coin.

Those who truly adopt "critical thinking" would argue that life is a fair bit messier than Dave makes it out to be. But Zirin doesn't care about that since he only bothers to get actual quotes from obviously-biased parties like Jacob Bond and his mother, plus half-the article devoted to the opinion of a Leftist compatriot like Peter Rachleff. Anything emerging from the school administration is strictly hearsay.

Speaking of messy, before some of you typecast me as some Bush sycophant, know that I AGREE that Jacob Bond has every right not to stand for the national anthem and not get kicked off the football team. And his medical condition should be kept purely confidential -- unless he commits a crime -- except if Jacob wants to publicly say "I have Asperger's" (let alone anything beyond that). In other words, both sides aren't innocent. You just won't hear it from Dave Zirin's article.

P.S. What Dave DOESN'T tell you is that the annual total cost of attendance at Macalaster is a whopping $45,900. I wonder how diverse the student body is with that price tag? Well, I found out -- as of 2008, enrolment consists of 1,322 Whites compared to 340 of EVERYONE ELSE (including 70 blacks, or 5.3%).

Might as well go to one of those "military regimented" state schools where tuition is significantly more affordable and various races and religions are more likely to interact. But note, if you leave that bastion of white Liberal hypocrites like Macalaster, beware the boogeyman of "big-time college sports"!

If you’re interested…
http://colleges.collegetoolkit.com/colleges/overview/macalester_college/173902.aspx

This is symptomatic of what's happening on campuses (and our country) today. Activism and dissent are in decline, and mainstream center-right positions are taken as "liberal."

I have worked at two small liberal arts colleges, so I can personally attest to it. Unfortunately, the "elitism" (i.e. high-priced tuition) of these institutions also means that many of the students are sons and daughters of the captains of industry and other shapers of world events, for whom conservatism is the norm.

Faculty are to some extent the last bastion of real liberalism, but even there the most radical are gradually being weeded out and the pressure to conform is intense.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Rachleff. Stinging your neck out these days is a dangerous thing.

1 - The tuition of the school has more than doubled since I attended, and also had need blind admission,

2 - Peter Rachleff is, as Grimblebee said, sticking his neck out in a big way. He is a person of courage and "JJ Dynamite" is clearly profoundly ignorant about what the school was - and is - other than what quick stats he call cull from the web.

He hasn't the first clue how the school approaches questions like Israel/Palestine, and I don't think he particularly cares. Now I suspect he is on another site attempting to prove that Obama has a forged birth certificate. All in a days trolling work

As for the more serious points raised, of course the school is an insanely expensive, and therefore exclusionary, institution. It's a private college in the USA. Stop the presses. The point is that there are those, like Rachleff, like Jacob and Trudy Bond- who thought it could be something else and are fighting for Macalester to be something else.

Instead, the school has chosen to take a toboggan ride to the kind of rare-air tuition fees that has taken an atmosphere of dissent and turned it on its head.

Of course, once upon a time (pre-Reagan), this country used to have programs like Pell grants and other forms of educational assistance that used to help more middle-class and working-class kids go to elite private schools.

Not only was this 'democratic' and the sort of thing that you used to see in an America that didn't celebrate wealth and class the way we do today, but it probably led to a student body that came from a wider range of backgrounds other than just being the kids of the captains of industry.

Democracy, freedom, and inclusion are always worth fighting far. Thanks Dave for pointing out a few of the heroes who are still trying to fight those good fights.

Macalester, Oberlin, Amherst, Williams, Haverford, blah blah, all fancy themselves as exemplars of inclusiveness and integration (and maybe they are for LGBT sons-and-daughters of the extremely wealthy), but they are, to-a-one, extremely segregated based on race and class.

Oh wait, Macalester does have 4% International students such as alum Kofi Annan -- who grew up in his country's elite but ta-da adds a patina of blackness -- but he has nothing to do with a cross-section of the U.S.A.'s economic and racial diversity.

But back to the point of your article. What bothers me, Dave, and agreed to by Chuck above, is that you are pushing a dichotomy of either Liberal Arts shangri-la (if you're white and rich) and the "militaristic", "jingo-istic" and Republican-lite state schools.

But you make your living writing about *popular* sports! So, to maintain your high standards, maybe you should cover the Macalaster Cross Country Ski Team if you value the "purity" of college sport. Too bad nobody will read it (unless there is some kind of random grievance that occurs, as is here in Macalester football).

At least Ivy's -- more likely due to their huge endowments -- are able to be far more inclusive in their demographic and social diversity. So are State schools, many of whom have cash flow due to alumni in large part due to their successful POPULAR sport programs like Division 1 football and basketball. And yup, I went to one of the above, but numerous of my friends chose the sports-endowment-free Macalasters of America. And they have emerged as unexposed to social and racial realities as they did going in.

But Dave and Rachleff romanticize Macalaster of the 80s and prior, where tuition was "only" $20,000, and the majority of their parents and colleagues were living off their parents' trust funds. Sigh.

JJ - first of all you just don't know what you are talking about. It was "only" 20 grand in 1996 when I graduated.
It is more than double that now. It used to be need blind. Now it is not. This dynamic affects the public colleges that you glorify as an example of racial and class inclusiveness. That shows a profound ignorance of the fact that state colleges have also seen dramatic rises in tuitions and pushing out of working class students.

The question is why. Rather than try to examine why this dramatic change has taken place, making higher education unaffordable to masses of people, you are taking lazy, half-hearted shots at people - like Peter Rachleff - who actually fight to make sure that the doors are open for those from families living paycheck to paycheck.

I say amen to your last posting Dave. I know Peter Rachleff well. He is not one to grandstand, but he is also not one to let injustice slide.

Dennis Jones

I graduated from Macalester in 2004. I think you might find that a lot has changed since Rosenberg became president...

While I share your concern about the path Macalester is taking, I think this argument is heavy-handed. First of all, we don’t have the whole story on Jacob Bond’s allegations. Certainly, if what Bond is charging is true, it’s totally unacceptable. But we don’t know, and don’t have the whole story. My gut tells me this is way more complicated than you let on. I totally agree the fact that this could go on at Mac is unconscionable. But the football coaches and administration deserve a fair hearing too.

Second, the football team and its coaches are completely unrepresentative of Macalester. The players, with some exceptions, would never consider Macalester unless it offered them the chance to play “college” football. The football team is an island of jocks chasing a dream. They aren’t good enough to play real college football, but they liked playing in high school and here they are. At the risk of over-generalizing, Mac football players are more conservative, less artsy, less political, less intellectual and less- Macalester-y then the student body as a whole. For example, I’d bet at least a third of the Republican students at Mac are on the football team.

The coaching staff is even more un-Macalester. These are adults chasing the dream of being a football coach who see Macalester as a wrung on the ladder to bigger and better things. Being head coach or simply having a job in “college football” attracts them to Macalester. These aren’t union organizers and hipsters who like designing 4-3 defenses.

So, the norms on the football team are going to be different. Should they be? I personally don’t think so. There are ardent Marxists, Democrats, gays and quirky Mac kids on the football team, even if they are in the minority. But the point is, what goes on in the football team is not necessarily representative of Macalester as a whole.

You could question why, given this and the fact that the team sucks, Macalester even has a football. I’d bet it’s about money. There are big donors and trustees who played on the team and Macalester doesn’t want the negative press. I’d bet the mainstream sports press would play it like, “Liberal school for hippies quits playing football to have more time for gay sex and reading Foucault.”

This is all wrapped up in a larger issue, Macalester’s hunt for more money, more prestige and more ivy covered buildings. Think about it, if you’re a small liberal arts college, how do you move up the foodchain so to speak? You need good press (Thanks a lot Dave), good marketing, smart students (IE those who US News and World report thinks are smart), rich students and donors. Attracting the latter three, requires the former two.

Macalester’s marketing pitch in recent years has overtaken a real sense of mission, and that’s the problem. What any good marketer knows is you gotta have an angle. Macalester’s angle is, “we’re the international liberal arts college, we have lots of international students, a building for global citizenship, lots of cool flags everywhere, etc.” Part of it is that that angle is a better in a soundbite than “we’re a good liberal arts school with lots of quirky, liberal, leftist, awkward, smart people.” The other part is that pimping internationalism is a means of getting rich scions of the international managerial class and thus, big checks and prestige. Plus, you can call become more “diverse” on paper while becoming startlingly less diverse in terms of socio-economic status. Again this is just a generalization, but Macalester’s international students are more responsible for bringing increasing conservatism, arrogance and privilege than are linebackers and shortstops. What we’ve seen is a $10 million building for the nebulous concept of global citizenship that amounts to a marketing tool and an office for the biggest egos on the faculty.

But it’s not just the administration. I also blame the fecklessness of the left at Macalester and America. Macalester still has a large population of hippies, anarchists, leftists, environmentalists and non-conformists. Aside from environmentalists, they never seem to do anything. Moreover, their ideology is so cynical with itself, the state of the world and the enormity of actually improving people’s lives that they’re trapped incoherently quoting post-modernist intellectuals, wearing dirty flannel and smoking cigarettes.