Who rools the skool?

Taken from the BBC:

The UK government is encouraging university chiefs to watch out for extremists on campuses and report suspicious people to the authorities. Education Secretary Ruth Kelly said they should protect free thinking but inform police of "unacceptable behaviour" by students or staff.

And it gets better. Taken from the Guardian:

Extremist organisations are operating on university campuses across the country and pose a serious threat to national security, according to a new report.

I'm sorry, but this has to be one of the most idiotic suggestions I have ever heard. Perhaps even THE most idiotic. The government is now so caught up in hysteria, panic and bullshit that they are proposing we watch students?! What next? Shall we round up all the pensioners and lock them away because they use up too much oxygen? Shall we put down any dogs that bark without a license?

We go to university in order to educate ourselves, to learn about the history of ideas, and to meet people we might otherwise never meet. We also go to get horrendously drunk and make unwise decisions about our sleeping partners. We do not, I repeat, DO NOT go to university in order to form covert terrorist cells and plot the downfall of Western civilisation.

This very much a cause for alarm, my friends. History shows that a great many political movements have indeed sprung from the halls of academia, often to the betterment of humanity, so the notion of supressing those political movements which might make the establishment uncomfortable is something that makes ME uncomfortable.

Certainly, extreme views can and will be found on any given university campus, but it's all part of an important process where individuals are allowed to explore the political spectrum and find their place in it. If the behaviour of any one person or group becomes detrimental to the wellbeing of others, then the self-regulating nature of an academic environment will ensure that those offending bodies are removed.

Self-regulation is the important phrase here; universities do not need secret policemen patrolling the dorms and the lecture halls and the libraries to ensure that everyone is behaving as they should. Ruth Kelly and Charles Clarke can take their scare-mongering rhetoric and shove it up their arses. Go find some other sheep to worry.