Igor O'Toole put his scrapbook aside, then stood up and stretched. Back at his work bench, preserving, repairing and reconstructing the tomes of human accomplishments, mistakes and history, he ruminated on how the more things change, the more they remain the same.
The structure of all but the most recently birthed colleges and universities is rigid, he observed to the roll of transparent tape he was using to repair still another torn page. Their medieval trappings, so obvious at historic functions, may appear invisible in other facets of existence. None the less, these trappings still exist.
Patterned much like the society of monks, higher educational administrations still follow a monolithic, generally white male-dominated path even though modern times have seen the enrollment of women students, the hiring of women faculty and even women in central administrative posts. But it's a facade. The real discipline, established centuries ago, is maintained and furiously guarded.
For a while, the newer laws of the seventies relating to affirmative action suggested that there would be a break in the male bastion. Time proved, however, that sex discrimination and sexual harassment laws were never well enforced and were being slowly destroyed by the Supreme Court.
Continuing his mentation, Igor allowed as how, like the monastery, the university structure is maintained because it is supported throughout the governmental system of a state or country.
Now comes the turn of ethnicity as students of all races, religions and creeds are storming the ancient fortifications. Thus far, they have not even cracked the surface. What appears to be maneuvers that should embarrass a university administration only serve to entrench it even more.
At Belmont, the student's attempts to force political correctness—PC, on the administration culminated in a takeover of their offices. Nothing new here. This has happened at many universities all over the country. The result of the takeover, far from enlightening the powers that be, only delighted the Belmont administration.
As student protests do every time, he reflected, they take the public's attention away from the stench of the secret university policies and procedures and place it on the antics of the students. Most always, student protests involved property destruction. As a result, public opinion turns against student innovators or bell ringers. The cause of their protest—entrenched, polluted power—is again shrouded by the ignorance that gave it birth in the middle ages.
Igor yawned and scratched his chin. Most of the collected intelligence and experiences of the world is in this library, he reminded himself, but few avail themselves of it. Upstairs now, you don't even have to search through books for whatever you're looking for, you just punch up a computer and it collects everything ever written on any subject you can think of.
But with all these wonderful strides in disseminating information, he marveled, the people running this place act just like they always have. Tradition covers a multitude of sins and power corrupts now just as it used to.