Alma matters

As a graduate of William and Mary, I had a front-row seat to this week’s debacle of President Nichol resigning. He was the target of a lot of irrational right-wing blustering about a few topics; you can read about it all here (among other places, I’m sure).

When I was there in the early 1990s, W&M was a mix of a few goofy braniac weirdos like me and a whole lot of Young Republicans studying business and wearing blue blazers and chinos. Somehow I managed to look past the school’s associations with Margaret Thatcher, Scalia, and James Baker and focus on more progressive happenings, such as when Doug Wilder came to campaign. (Although I must admit that most of my time in college was spent shirking the assigned reading and going out for nachos.) But now, the attacks on Nichol are harder to ignore—if only because a fair amount of the conflict has been waged in my email inbox. Also, it’s been a stark change from the relentlessly sunny PR I usually receive, whose singular purpose is to induce me to donate some dough.

I have to say, anybody attacked by the likes of Michelle Malkin is pretty much all right by me. Virginia clearly is torn between its conservative past and a more liberal, hopeful future. Too bad this incident with Nichol is a clear step backward.