Indoctrinate U may be centered on intolerance and double standards on U.S. campuses, but that doesn't mean it isn't resonating strongly with international audiences. The film is currently enjoying a series of screenings in Canada--and it is touching off some intriguing reflections on Canadian campus p.c. Barbara Kay of the National Post expresses horror at the recognition that the kind of vibrant, intellectually adventurous experience she had in college is no longer reliably available in Canada and the U.S.
And in response to the February 18 screening at Ottawa's Free Thinking Film Society, blogger Scott McClare--a.k.a. the Crusty Curmudgeon--looks back on his comparatively halcion university days:
I attended university from 1989 to 1997. I tend to think of myself as part of the last non-politically-correct class to enter the institute, because 1989 was not exactly a good year for political incorrectness on campus. At Wilfrid Laurier University, a traditional panty raid got out of hand (and was subsequently banned). At Queen’s University, some male students’ satirical response to the Canadian Federation of Students’ “No Means No” campaign against date rape, in which they hung banners reading “No Means More Beer” and similar parody slogans, aroused the ire of feminists. And, of course, it was the year of the Montreal Massacre. So with respect to gender issues, at least, in hindsight it was possible to see which way the wind would be blowing in a little while. But while I was once marked down for using the generic “he” in a paper (a heinous act for which I remain stubbornly unrepentant), there really wasn’t an attempt while I was on campus to formulate or enforce the kind of totalitarian speech codes we see in Indoctrinate U. - and to equate hurt feelings on my part with an act of harassment on your part was practically unthinkable. The idea of the university campus as a “safe space” where particular orthodoxies are left unchallenged (such as the morality of abortion, as we have seen on the campuses of Carleton, Lakehead, York, and other institutions in recent years) was non-existent.
Things aren't quite so freewheeling anymore, McClare reluctantly notes: "Evan Coyne Maloney’s film is a warning: if the student champions of free speech can become the adult commissars of approved speech, what more will we see on campuses when today’s student governments, already little Stalinists, take over administering the universities? Welcome to the new Dark Ages."