siderations would have to place a distantnsecond and third. The worst immigrationnpolicy proposed in severalnyears comes from the Bush administration,nwhich has asked Congress tonallow up to 150,000 additional immigrantsnover the next five years under annew classification of “foreign policyninterest.” While other political refugeesnwould be included, Soviet citizensnwould be the primary beneficiaries ofnthe program. What ever happened tonperestroika? Mr. Bush’s call for expandednimmigration goes hand in handnwith his secretary of state’s aggressivendemocratic globalism. As one Americannelder statesman remarked to menrecently, we shouldn’t judge these globalndemocrats too harshly. It may turnnout they are just cynics out to manipulatenpublic opinion. On the other hand,nmaybe these ex-liberal Texans are simplyntrying to prove their conservativencredentials. (TF)nAFFIRMATIVE ACTION ARTnwas supposed to solve the headaches ofnthe School of the Art Institute ofnChicago — still reeling from last year’snresponse to its display of a paintingndepicting the late Mayor Harold Washingtonnin frilly underwear—when itnhurriedly arranged an all-minoritynshow at the school. But instead ofnpeace and quiet, they got one “Dread”nScott Tyler, whose now-famous “WhatnIs the Proper Way to Display thenAmerican Flag” invited patrons tonwrite their comments on a ledger accessiblenonly by walking on Old Glory,ndraped across the floor. What followednwas predictable. A great many Chicagoansnand other citizens took umbrage:nveterans, in particular, didn’t cotton tonshedding their blood for the likes ofnTyler, a self-described “proletarian internationalist”nwho “welcome[s] . . .nthe targeting and torching of this symbol”nworldwide. Civil liberties typesncompared protests against the exhibitnto the Ayatollah’s contract on SalmannRushdie. Politicians passed resolutionsncondemning the display, and courtsnleapt to its defense, inevitably invokingnthe First Amendment and overrunningnthe law against desecration. (“Placingnthe flag on the floor is not mutilating,ndefacing, or trampling it,” said CooknCounty Judge Kenneth Cillis.)nIt is hard to credit the sincerity ofnpeople who claim to believe that grimynbootprints on the stars and stripes arenwhat the Founders had in mind whennthey protected free speech. One rathernsuspects, as someone said of The NewnYork Times editorialists, that when theynroutinely side with America’s enemies,nit’s not that they’re suppressing theirnpatriotic instincts in the interests ofnhigher justice; rather, that they have nonpatriotic instincts to suppress. Reactionnagainst the display may have gonenoverboard at times (the alderman whonsaid that “There has ‘never been anmore dastardly act in the City of Chicago”nwas being, to say no more,nextravagant), but the public’s outragenwas the honest, healthy response of thensort of folk without whom a nationncannot get along. (MK)nEDWARD LEVINE, professornemeritus of social psychology at LoyolanUniversity of Chicago, was an academicnand a truthteller, a combinationnincreasingly hard to find in the modernnuniversity. His wide range of interestsnnnwas reflected in his work, from his booknThe Irish and Irish Politicians: A Studynof Social and Cultural Alienationn(University of Notre Dame: 1966) to’narticles in popular and scholariy journalsnon such subjects as religious cults,ngrade inflation, and mental health. Hisngreatest concern, however, was for thenfamily and the threat posed to it by thenlegitimization and celebration of deviance.nIn one of his last articles, “Homosexualitynand the Family” in thenJuly 1988 Chronicles, Professor Levinenwarned that “the homosexuals’ndrive to win moral legitimacy mustnattempt to render both arbitrary andnunjust the religious values underpinningnthe worthiness of marriage, family,nand child-rearing.” To modernnacademia, such a prospect is positivelyndesirable, an essential part of clearingnaway the clutter of the past in order tonget on with the important business ofnbuilding the brave new world. Wenregret the loss of a courageous scholarnwho saw his role as the preservation,nnot the destruction, of the old standards.nR.I.P. (MK)nJULY 1989/7n