Several students at Loyola University in Chicago reported in a video published atBreitbart that they were “required” by their “environmental sustainability” professor to attend a January 23rd lecture by gay marriage supporting Van Jones.

The event was labeled a “2013 MLK Celebration” in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. In his lecture, Jones talked little about the environment but at length about what he called the ”ugly and unequal” founding of our country. He called students to a “new patriotism.”

Nancy C. Tuchman, the Executive Director for the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola, spoke to Breitbart regarding the requirement that students attend the Jones lecture.

We don’t want them to just follow in their parents’ footsteps, or just do whatever their parents told them to do, or vote whatever direction, they were told to vote, we want them to think about stuff and look at stuff and make their own decisions.

I do not think the provost was wrong in saying that this guy has done fabulous stuff for society in a very selfless way, and maybe he goes too far, but he has done stuff that has been valuable to humanity, and you can’t deny that.

And you might say you don’t like what he’s talking about when he’s throwing pot shots at our founding fathers. Okay, there’s probably a lot of stuff that maybe I wouldn’t about him either. I think what the provost was trying to say was, here’s a guy that has really devoted his life to trying to affect change in a really positive way, for humanity.

I think that’s really one of things that we try to do at Loyola is get students to look at how they can devote a part of their life when they leave here. How can they feel responsible for humanity, for the common good, not just for going out and getting a really great job where they can make millions of dollars, and exploit people.

You can read the entire story at Breitbart.

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