I would like to add something from my own experience as a student at  
Penn, Duke and a grad student at Penn and Wm & Mary. There was a  
major shift from the free wheeling debates I experienced as a student  
at the University of Pennsylvania in the 70s and Duke University in  
the 80s to what I saw more recently at Wm & Mary. If there was  
discussion in class it tended to involve three people- the professor  
and the two old guys in class (I was one). All of my fellow students  
had degrees from good universities, but apparently had little or  
nothing to say on a wide range of subjects, and they did very little  
but take notes. This made seminars a bit triangular, and not nearly  
as satisfying as they might have been. One day the two old guys  
agreed before one class that we would not make any comments. The  
professor stormed out of class after 15 minutes of deafening silence  
saying "If none of you did the reading you could have told me!".  
After he left the rest of the class looked accusingly at we two, as  
if it was all our fault. There are many possible interpretations as  
to why this occured. With what I have seen in other venues, I'm  
convinced it is "PC". A free and open debate is virtually impossible  
when most of the potential participants are unwilling to say anything  
that might possibly be interpreted in way that might offend.

James Brothers, RPA
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