Editorial: Santorum “snob” comment troubling

During a Feb. 25 meeting with tea party members in Mich., potential Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum drew a conclusion more alarming than his Google search results: President Obama is a “snob” because “he wants everybody in America to go to college.”

Santorum was referencing a statement the President made during a 2009 joint session of Congress, in which he implored Americans to “commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.” Obama went on to clarify that this could entail “community college or a four-year school; vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be … get more than a high school diploma.”

The message Santorum apparently gleaned from Obama’s plea for a renewed interest in education, however, is borderline conspiratorial: “President Obama said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob! There are good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image.”

For the moment, ignore the irony that these words came from the mouth of a Penn. State graduate with an MBA from U. Pittsburg and yet another degree from the Dickinson School of Law. How can one equate the aspiration that every American citizen receive some education beyond high school with being “taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate” him or her?

Yes, on many large universities, as with any area where young people gather in numbers, there is a strong sense of social liberalism. Still, this has hardly stemmed the influence of conservative or religious ideas. After all, Young Republican and Christian Fellowship clubs are common, and well attended, on campuses across the nation.

What does take place at these colleges, rather than any sinister brainwashing, is exposure to new points of view. Students get to interact with peers from different cultures and backgrounds and, as a result, test their beliefs to see which hold merit. This is a vital period of time for young adults where their ultimate values, on whatever side of the spectrum, are solidified.

But, back to the delicious irony that is Santorum’s educational career. This is a man who, through three separate universities, managed to maintain his own political identity; yet, he suggests that his constituency is incapable of doing the same. Further, Santorum is vying for the position of most powerful man in the world while encouraging willful ignorance.

Such a person in office would garner more than disgust from founding father, and famously voracious scholar, Thomas Jefferson, who, like Santorum, called Virginia home. Yet another ironic detail, given that Santorum’s comments were meant to appeal to the tea party, a group that routinely uses Jefferson and other founding fathers as a focal point of their rhetoric.

Thankfully, voters during the two Feb. 28 Republican Primaries reacted similarly and Mitt Romney, the other leading GOP hopeful, came out well ahead in Ariz. and Mich. There are, however, still eight months left before the election and, as was made evident by the resounding applause during the televised rally, Santorum’s anti-higher education comments resonate with a select demographic.

As a journalist, I hold the pursuit of truth and knowledge, and the ready access thereof, in the highest regard. Anyone who advocates the opposite is foolish at best, and dangerous at worst.

Should America ever get into a position where one is considered a “snob” for suggesting that staying in school is a good idea, things are going to look a lot like, well, Santorum’s Google results.