Perhaps Professor Van Wormer does not realize that when the Baltic states were freed from Communist domination it was discovered that their rivers and streams were many, many times more polluted than any bodies of water to be found in relatively free societies. The final sentence, though, is the real kicker. AIDS had become a dominant issue, of course. Now, seven years later, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent trying to find a cure for the disease spread mainly by homosexuals. AIDS however, isn't the chief problem.
Political correctness is the problem.
In those days, one could discontinue social experiments when they don't work. Today, their failure is simply blacked out. I emailed a very abbreviated version of these remarks both to Professor Van Wormer and to the President of the University of Northern Iowa. I wonder if the institution would have come to her defense so rapidly if she was criticizing, instead of defending, the views she expresses. Of course, I heard nothing from Professor Van Wormer herself.