Liberty University, a private university founded by Rev. Jerry Falwell, recently banned a student Democrat club, claiming that “the Democratic party violated the university’s principles, because it supports abortion, socialism and the agenda of gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

Although Liberty University is a private institution and therefore should be allowed to perform such an action, this instance makes me wonder how they came up with their name. After all, banning a student organization, especially one as benign as College Democrats, contradicts the idea of “freedom from restriction of doing or thinking something.”

As well, according to the University’s statement, “Everything we do here is designed to develop Christ-centered men and women with the values, knowledge and skills essential to impact tomorrow’s world.” That’s fine, they admit their Christian bias. But I wonder then, why are “socialist” values objectionable?

The college experience should certainly challenge and test our beliefs, but its ability to do that is gone when the university itself doesn’t facilitate free discussion.

The Economist recently reported that because on May 19th its citizens rejected the proposed tax hikes and budget cuts, the state of California is now facing a budget deficit of $21.3 billion. (Just fyi, Cali is expected to bring in $82 billion in revenue this year.)

California might be the state most crippled by the recession. Due to the housing market’s collapse, the state’s budget, which drew heavily on property taxes, is nearing bankruptcy. However, the credit crisis can only be given so much blame. After all, it didn’t cause Californians to acquire champagne tastes, it only helped give them a beer budget.

Jack Kelly, who wrote a column just before the elections, did an excellent job pointing out some of the reasons why California’s expenditures are so high. I’d recommend reading his piece along with the article by The Economist, which mentions different reasons.

According to the Rasmussen Reports, a public opinion polling firm, only 24% of Americans know what cap-and-trade is. Their piece, published last week, said,

The gap between Capitol Hill and Main Street is huge when it comes to the so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation being considered in Congress. So wide, in fact, that few voters even know what the proposed legislation is all about.

With these numbers it’s a bit hard to say that any side on the issue has popular support. Although the cap-and-trade scheme has been called a tax in disguise by some Republicans, it’s unlikely that the Obama administration wanted to confuse the public with a phrase that clearly states its intent – to cap carbon emissions by selling permits to polluters, and then allow the private sector to trade those permits amongst themselves. More than likely, the public’s ignorance is a result of their own disinterest in following current events.

It’s poll results like this that make me wonder why ‘Get Out the Vote’ campaigns are necessary. Do we really trust people who aren’t motivated enough to make a trip to city hall and sign their name to be informed enough to responsibly vote?

“Area Man First In His Family To Coast Through College.” Once again, the Onion’s satire seems to be spot on. But seriously, congratulations graduates of 2009!

Last week IU’s Kelley School of Business was given the crown of best in entrepreneurship research. Meanwhile, in a somewhat ironic – but not contradictory – article from the Indianapolis Business Journal, it was reported that the state of Indiana is struggling with entrepreneurship. The IBJ’s explanation was that the recession devalued university endowments, which have been major contributors to venture capitalist investments.

The recession has cost most institutional investors, such as university endowments, about a quarter of their value. As a result, venture capitalists’ primary source of funding has dried up. The implications for Hoosier entrepreneurship are stark.

It seems that even now, near what some economists think is the bottom of the recession, we are still finding new side-effects of last fall’s financial fiasco.