"There's not one single authentic feminist youhave right here, right now [on Harvard'sfaculty]," Paglia said. "There is no one, when itwould have cost them something, who went on theline for anything."
Paglia said she was systematically shut out ofIvy League universities in the 1970s and 1980sbecause her ideas about literature and feminismdid not "toe the party line."
Paglia praised Kenan Professor of GovernmentHarvey C. Mansfield '53 for speaking out againstwomen's studies at Harvard.
Paglia commended Mansfield for his support ofColorado's law limiting gay rights because heconfronted politically correct opinions.
Mansfield "[struck] a blow for free speech,"Paglia said.
During the trial that questioned theamendment's legality, Mansfield outragedgay-rights groups when he testified thathomosexuality "undermines civilization."
Elaborating on her critique of Ivy Leagueuniversities that she began in a speech sponsoredby the IOP Thursday, Paglia said that academics ingeneral are out of touch with the world beyond theuniversity.
"There is such a gap between the reality of thepeople that I see on the street, and the victimpolitics being projected by the white media andwhite P.C. rhetoric," she said.
Today's liberal humanities professors, shesaid, oversimplify political issues.
"It's like there are people on one side who areabout suffering and people on the other side whodon't," Paglia said.
Paglia said her generation's top academicprofessionals are using the classroom to spreadtheir own ideology and are suppressing the freeexchange of ideas among undergraduates.
"The standard of intellectual debate in thiscountry is very low," Paglia said, She attributedthis standard to "sanctimonious, humanitarian,white, bourgeois, Victorian" attitudes of mostcontemporary humanities professors.
Paglia said most academics have succeeded byconforming to established trends rather thanbreaking new ground.
"It doesn't matter what color they are," shesaid. "If they have gotten in front of yourclassroom, they've had to dress in a certain wayand act in a certain way to get there."
Excerpts from Friday's interview with Pagliawill be broadcast on WHRB on Saturday, February12