Call her "Professor Prejudice"
Iowa ivory tower intolerance

"First, voting for a candidate for president simply because she is a woman is a perfectly legitimate position."
- Sara Mitchell, Univ. of Iowa political science professor

That half-baked and hateful philosophical vomit was issued in the unfortunate academic's 1/22 Des Moines Register essay, "Why voting for a female president really matters."

And of course, such puerile claptrap is easily undone: Casting one's ballot for or against candidates based upon racial, religious, or gender considerations is flatly contrary to the ideal of individual merit carrying the day in democratic competition.

But, doubtless, sorry endorsers of Professor Prejudice's electoral bigotry would charge that the merit argument assumes historical equality and a 'level playing field' that in actuality never existed. Hence, they might further posit, the need for "marginalized communities" to vote identity interests.

In that thinking, Hillary Clinton and Carly Fiorina are interchangeable. Elizabeth Warren and Phyllis Schlafly are indistinguishable.

I believe that ideas individuals have embraced and advocate, not relatively trivial, external identities they never authored, are the truest, most important determinants in elections and, yes, in life.

The alternative is separate drinking fountains.

Hold your hood high, Professor Prejudice.



(An earlier version of this piece misquoted the Register essay. That error has been corrected.)