In this episode of "The No Longer Hallowed Halls of Academia"...

Student Alex Shieh, a sophomore at formerly prestigious Ivy League Brown University, decided to send a DOGE-inspired email on March 18 to 3,805 administrators on the campus, asking them to “describe what tasks you performed in the past week.” The email mirrored a letter that Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency sent to federal workers in February.

As you might recall, untold numbers of federal workers who received Musk's letter were incensed by the mere thought -- and audacity -- that they should be required to actually report specifics of the tasks they had accomplished over the previous five days, as if validating their job performance to superiors was tantamount to a threat.

Anyway, rather than respond to the student's email -- even with a non-answer -- Brown officials chose a boneheaded alternative: they summoned Shieh to answer charges of misrepresenting himself as a reporter for the Brown Spectator, an "unrecognized" student-run newspaper of conservative and libertarian political content at the university. 

Not to oversimplify, but what difference does it make whether or not the university officials "recognizes" the student-run publication? Other than it was presented as an excuse by Brown officials to ignore a question from a conservative student, that is. 

Shieh, a 20-year-old computer science and economics major, told The Washington Times on Wednesday that Brown officials also accused him of violating operational rules by publishing the names and positions of staff members on the Spectator's website, adding:

The disciplinary charges are retaliatory. I think they’re trying to silence criticism. Rather than make decisions based on merit, elite schools are catering to the wealthy and virtue-signalling, creating a caste system that isn’t great for our country. My view of the current landscape is that higher education is not fair, not affordable for students, and not accountable to the American people.

Shieh could not have been more spot on; not just about Brown, but also about the state of many universities across America — with Ivy League schools smugly and unsurprisingly perched atop the radical-leftist heap.

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A university spokesperson previously told The College Fix that Shieh’s report on the Spectator website included “derogatory descriptions of job functions of named individuals.”

Meanwhile, Brown spokesperson Brian Clark said in a related statement that the case isn't about free speech.

In spite of what has been reported publicly framing this as a free speech issue, it absolutely is not. At the center of Brown’s review are questions focused on whether improper use of non-public Brown data, non-public data systems and/or targeting of individual employees violated law or policy.

Call me skeptical, but Clark's statement was part of Brown's attempt to silence Alex Shieh.

Also on Wednesday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) sent a letter to Brown President Christina Paxon urging the university to drop the investigation.

While Shieh’s reporting may have annoyed some Brown employees, it is protected by the university’s strong and laudable free expression promises and cannot be the subject of an investigation.

Ah, Brown University's "strong and laudable free expression promises." Again, please.

As is the case with virtually everything the left claims it supports, it appears that Brown's "laudable free expression promises" apply only to expression that supports its various views and narratives — just as "inclusion" (the "I" in DEI) only includes those who left the left-wing intelligentsia choose to include.

Meanwhile, conservatives and conservative thought and content are to be mocked, rejected, and outright censored at every concocted opportunity.

The nation’s elite academic institutions have lost the plot and become full-on indoctrination centers. 

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