Last year in this space, we reported that Georgetown University, capitulating to the meretricious forces of multiculturalism and political correctness, had decided to scrap the requirement that students majoring in English read Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Milton (see “Georgetown Flunks English,” The New Criterion, January 1996). Instead of immersing themselves in the masterworks of English literature, English majors could henceforth devote themselves to such topics as “Studies in Culture and Performance,” an area of study that—in the words of a document put out by Georgetown’s English department—focuses on “the power exerted on our lives by such cultural and performative categories as race, gender, sexuality, and nationality.” In other words, it was goodbye to Shakespeare, and hello to multicultural claptrap.

We noted in the course of our report that the situation at Georg ...

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