Why You Should Care About the Scripps Bomb Threat

As many of you know, last Tuesday, Scripps's Malott Commons was the target of a bomb threat.

Many dismissed the bomb threat as nothing more than the ruminations of a man with "unkempt blond hair."

While others, like Ms. Clare Cannon, see this threat as symptomatic of wider communication problems between the administration and the students, I choose to reserve judgment. I'm sure educators are just as terrified as the students. I don't see it as such a problem if the vegan cookies aren't duly dispensed because no one wants to infringe upon such novel concepts as "privacy"-- as if privacy could be said to exist at all in college.

In fact, if history is our guide, the educators have every reason to take all necessary precautions. According to Ward Elliott, a professor of government, recounts the radicalism of the '60's:

CMC's Story House fire, supposedly caused by a hot radiator pipe, was one of 25 fires and three bombs which went off on the Claremont campuses. The Story House fire itself took place six days after a black militant from Pomona, demanding the endorsement of ethnic quotas and black studies courses, had asked the CMC faculty, "Do you want this campus burned down this summer or next summer?" Scripps President and Claremont Provost Mark Curtis was hauled out of his office to answer to an angry crowd of students and faculty. Anonymous phone callers inquired by what route his children went to school. One of the bombs maimed and partially blinded Mary Anne Keatley, wife of Robert Keatley, a CMC football player.

Given this history, I hope that Scripps and any other school faced with comparable threats, frisks away. I frankly don't see the merit of civil liberties if I can't see at all.

The Clarence Thomas Claremont McKenna Connection Continued

First and foremost, let me apologize for not posting earlier. I have been quite ill. Though I know that's no excuse, I hope, dear readers, that you'll forgive me anyways.

In any event, I've finished My Grandfather's Son by Justice Clarence Thomas. It is one of the best books I've ever read.

On page 188, Thomas offhandedly mentions that he "led his staffers (especially Ken Masugi and John Marini) in discussions of natural-law philosophy with which the Declaration of Independence, America's first founding document, is permeated."

If the names sound familiar, they should. Ken Masugi and John Marini are Claremont Institute fellows and the Declaration of Independence has been the initial document for all government classes at Claremont McKenna.

Perhaps more surprising, is the Michael Uhlmann connection, mentioned on page 193. Michael Uhlmann, a visiting Claremont McKenna professor, apparently asked Clarence Thomas if he had ever considered becoming a member of the federal judiciary to which Thomas quipped:
"That's a job for old people. I'm forty. I can't see myself spending the rest of my life as a judge." Fortunately, Justice Thomas reconsidered and went through the nomination process first as a federal judge and later as an Associate Justice. We owe Uhlmann a debt of gratititude.