Loyola University Economics Professor Walter Block starts off his Tuesday article at lewrockwell.com stating it has come to his attention “that many Loyola students will not enroll in my classes, will boycott my public lectures, will have nothing to do with me, because they think I favor slavery and am a racist and a sexist.” Block then proceeds to refute each of the assertions put forward to urge students to boycott him.
In addition to the boycott effort being based on false claims, it threatens to cause participating students to receive a much lesser college education. That is an argument Robert Wenzel convincingly presents in a Tuesday Target Liberty article. After providing his own refutation of the assertions used to support the Block boycott, Wenzel concludes with some comments regarding what students participating in the boycott will miss out on. Wenzel writes:
But aside from the specifics of Dr. Block’s views, it is a particularly limited student mind that refuses to contemplate or consider thinking that is different from what a student already thinks he knows.
College should be a period of open thinking and consideration of all types of views.
The students boycotting Dr. Block will never do anything impressive on the intellectual front. They will be moved by the intellectual fads of the day. They will be anti-plastic straw today, and who knows, maybe pro-butt tattoos tomorrow. They are in an important way insignificant. The student that takes Dr. Block’s class to challenge him or learn from him is taking the first step toward deep thought, independent thought and maybe original thought. This will be the type of person that may make an intellectual contribution down the road.
At the Ron Paul Institute, we highly value Block’s insights, especially regarding the institute’s areas of focus — advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home. We are thankful for Block’s membership in the institute’s Academic Board and hopeful that many Loyola University students will both reject the call to boycott Block and take advantage of their opportunity to learn with him.
