European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 02, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns Ellen Goodman the stars and stripes Nixon can t be forgiven until he apologizes he is everywhere these Days. Looking rested and tanned and Sage. Dispensing advice and experience. In Tiptop form. He even looks Good on television now. Watching Richard Nixon s speech before the Ameri can society of newspaper editors in Washington i could not decide whether to hold my nose or take Miles. Confronted Wilh full Page reviews of his Book. I cannot decide whether to be intrigued or appalled. If Nixon had been convicted of a felony surely he would have been paroled by now. This is the Case of rehabilitation. If. On inc other hand he is welcomed Inq the fold of respected elder statesmen does t it neutralize wrongs into m Isic Manors this is the Case for exile. What is the relationship Balw can forgiving and forget Tingi ask inc same question when the ads come on my set showing Dow chemical at its Best. The Young woman and her Grandfather arc walking together Down a country Road. As she talks about her work Al Dow saving farms and Farmers my mind flashes Back to the Dow products that were dropped on vietnamese villages. At times i wonder if 1 am to become a crazy lady in my Middle age one of an Ever diminishing band of people still Yelling at inc television set what about watergate what about napalm at other times i wonder if thai would be belter or worse than becoming one of those Cven handed people who say to be fair we must balance inc watergate break in and inc China breakthrough must balance napalm and Saran  do i want my moral Compass to become a clock so James j. Kilpatrick that wrongs arc diminished Wilh Lime if not do 1 want to be lied 10 a clock thai slopped do i. Do any of us. Know when and whether to let go of past wrongs most of us have faced dilemmas like these even in Ever Day life. I have been a witness to marriages where one partner did in theol Cron the Way out the door. His or her behaviour was  we All said so. Yet almost All were at some Lime to some degree forgiven. Indeed the partner who remains quickly wronged Lime Lessly bitter is almost inevitably Crivici cd because he or she has to we All agree moved  when arc we supposed to move on and when arc we supposed to stand sentry witness to personal an Public history the classic moral example Loo uniquely evil to have wider meaning is the holocaust. Our fear of forgetting is such that we put up memorials and arc appalled if the Swastika reappears As some pop Emblem. Yet even Here we expect the grandchildren of holocaust survivors to be allies with the grandchildren of nazis. Times change. People change. The person who carried the Candle of a cause for one generation can be disparaged by the next for carrying a grudge. The 60s still argue about Hanoi Jane Fonda while the 80s identify her As the Star of an exercise Lape. There comes a Genera Tion that knows not Sacco and Vanzetti. Joe Mccarthy and then watergate. Some 42 million americans have been born since Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office. I and crying much of the resistance against rehabilitation against forgiving is the fear that our old enemy the old wrong doer will be Able to claim Victory after All simply by outliving the rage. He or she will have gotten away with it whether the it is a personal or Public wrong. Our memories arc Short our sense of history is slight the infamous and famous alike get homogenized into that morality Neutral category called  but it seems to me there is a criterion though imperfect for rehabilitation. It s something quite old fashioned that i would Call confession or repentance. An admission of guilt an expression of sorrow May be a better Standard by which to judge a Friend or corporation or an sex president than Mere Lime or punishment. Without repentance a new image May be nothing More than a . Job to Whitewash the past without repentance forgiving can mean forgetting. This can Whitewash the past prove that what happened was t so bad fit was t Worth remembering. I am not one of those people who measure cardio vascular health by How fast their pulse returns to nor Mal when Richard Nixon appears on a television screen. But How docs he describe his attack on the Constitution that we Call watergate apart from the fact thai it was wrong it was  this is just not enough. Not enough to buy my Vole for admission into inc Circle of elder state Man. Not enough or. Sex president. Cd Washington Post Stanford University brought Low by ignorance i r i this be said for big Bill Ben Cit. The . Secretary of education he never picks on Little Guys. He fights Only in inc heavyweight class. On april 18 he look on Stanford University the Godzilla of higher education and won by a knockout in the first round. This was inc Story in 1980. Stanford established a required course for fresh men called Western Cullura. The course was built around a Core Reading list of 15 significant works in Western philosophy and literature. The course said Bennett was immensely popular with both faculty and  but in inc Spring of 1986. A Small but very vocal group of students demanded thai the course be abolished. Western Cullura they charged was a culture of racism sexism imperialism and elitism. Away Wilh it the administration began to wobble. The faculty named a task Force to evaluate the situation. Sure enough the task Force brought in a preliminary report recommending that Western culture be re placed by a new melange called Cul Tures. Ideas and values Civ. Some of the 15 classic works of Western thought would be retained but henceforth fresh men would be required to read at least one Book a Quarter by women Minori ties and persons of  the y must address issues of race gender and i lass. Student and faculty activists at once rallied to the new Banner. On Martin la incr King s birthday in 1987, students staged a rally. Jesse Jackson led them in chanting hey hey to. To Western culture s got to  last Spring to make their Point members of the Rainbow Agenda forcefully occupied inc office of president Donald Kennedy for five hours. No one was punished or expelled. List fall a faculty Senate subcommittee met to discuss the Issue. Students disrupted the meeting shouting Down with Western Cullura. Up with Diversi  the idea said a participant was that the subcommittee was getting a bit timid and we wan cd them to be Well aware of the dedication to changing the Western culture  the subcommittee got the message. It forwarded the Civ plan to the Senate. Proponents stepped up the pressure. The Light turned ugly. A faculty Senate steer ing committee proposed amendments to Civ Ului would have restored some of the Western material. On March 31, a crowd of 200 angry supporters of Civ gathered outside the Senate s meeting room Mil weakening amendments were unacceptable. President Kennedy yielded peacefully and inc Senate voted 39-4 to abolish the old and to ring in the new. Said Bennett Stanford s decision was not a product of enlightened debate but rather an unfortunate capitulation to a Campaign of pressure politics and intimidation. Does anyone doubt that selecting works based on the ethnicity or gender of their authors trivializes the academic Enterprise does anyone really doubt the political Agenda underlying these provisions Bennett looked ahead. Stanford he predicted will win fulsome Praise for its progressive and innovative Deci Sion. Other universities impressed by Stanford s lofty and enlightened exam ple also will minimize the values of Western culture. Tactics of intimidation having succeeded so remarkably in Palo allo will be duplicated elsewhere. De fenders of the abandoned program will quietly subside. But they know what they know and others around the coun try know it too that for a moment a great University was brought Low by the very forces which modern universities came into being to oppose ignorance irrationality and  Stanford s president Kennedy reduced to inc sputters and gurgles has angrily denied Bennett s charges. The Secretary he says was either ill in formed or  the debate Over Civ was not political he says nor was it influenced by intimidation. Ben Nett has used his bully pulpit to bully rather than engage the  but in his speech at Stanford on april 18, Bennett directly engaged the  he spoke eloquently of the University s role in transmitting the values of Western civilization. We must study and nurture the West he said because it is our culture because it is fundamentally Good because it is a source of incomparable intellectual complexity and diversity and depth and because the West is under attack. Other cultures should be studied also of course they should be studied but a thorough grounding in our own civilization has to come first. That s what mighty Stanford used to pro vide. A Unn ref us pie synd Cata