I Am Not Making This Up: Dave Barry Is "Patently Offensive"
Nick Gillespie | October 18, 2006, 11:31am
The free-speech fun squad at
the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) reports on the latest suppression of expression on campus: In August, a grad student at Marquette University in Milwaukee posted a Dave Barry quote on his office door. The quote reads:
"As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful, and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government."
On September 5, says FIRE:
Philosophy Department Chair James South sent [student Stuart] Ditsler an e-mail stating that he had received several complaints and therefore removed the quote. He wrote, "While I am a strong supporter of academic freedom, I'm afraid that hallways and office doors are not 'free-speech zones.' If material is patently offensive and has no obvious academic import or university sanction, I have little choice but to take note."
I dunno about you, but I actually think the most offensive thing in the whole situation is the department chair's quisling claim to being "a strong supporter of academic freedom." More info here.
Reason interviewed Dave Barry a decade ago. It's a very funny interview well worth reading and even committing to memory, though I should warn all fan(s) of The Five Man Electrical Band that he/they will find it "patently offensive":
Barry: My nomination right off the top my head [for the worst rock 'n' roll song of all time] is a song that was a hit in the '70s--"Signs, signs, everywhere signs, blocking up the scenery, breaking my mind, do this, don't do that, can't you read the signs?" Basically a diatribe against property rights....It' s a real smug self-righteous punk kid saying nobody has the right to tell him what to do and how dare you put a sign up saying that I can't go on your property? Hey, kid! Stick this sign up your ass.
Whole interview here.
thoreau | October 18, 2006, 11:01pm | #
Paul-
I agree. These laws can be used by people with axes to grind.
Imagine if you're the department chair, and somebody who "brings diversity to the department" comes to you and says that the sign on somebody's door creates a "hostile environment", constituting a "verbal assault." If at any point the word "lawyer" is uttered, the department chair has no choice but to remove the sign.
Tenure means that they can't fire you, but it doesn't mean that they can't impose all sorts of idiotic policies. And a department chair who wants to protect the good faculty and students from idiotic rules must do whatever it takes to prevent The Authorities from conducting a thorough inspection of the department. There's no telling what sort of even more idiotic rules they might impose, as a means of covering their asses.
So that's what it comes down to: If people way high up have to cover their asses then they'll impose a broad swath of idiotic rules on just about everybody. The only way to prevent that is to make sure that the incident never reaches people way high up. And the best way to make sure the incident never reaches that high level is to cover the department chair's ass by imposing a much smaller (but still idiotic!) rule on a much smaller number of people (i.e. one department, instead of the entire university).
Sad but true.
Also, while there's no
good excuse for removing the sign, I wonder if this student hadn't perhaps had a history of pissing people off? While some incidents originate entirely from one individual's craziness, other incidents arise when two or more people have some sort of history that escalates until somebody decides to create an incident.
Moreover, he went to FIRE, which has an interest in over-stating the problems in academia. Their mission statement includes the following:
The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual rights at America's increasingly repressive and partisan colleges and universities.
Click here for more
I'm not here to defend PC run amok, but incidents of PC run amok are much less frequent than some would like you to believe. One of the most conservative people that I know just finished his Ph.D. and is now an assistant professor at a good university. He's had complaints about a few things, but he certainly doesn't consider himself to be in a hostile or oppressive environment.
So the fact that this student went to a group that exaggerates the magnitude of the problems in academia makes me wonder if he didn't go out of his way to piss somebody off. Did he call attention to the sign? Was it part of some running feud, a reference something that had transpired in a face-to-face conversation? To us it seems like a perfectly innocuous quote, but we don't know if there's a context or background that changes things.
I'm not saying that the sign should have been banned. What I am saying is that:
1) I assign the bulk of the blame to whoever created the incident, and much less blame to the department chair who covered the department's collective ass.
2) I want to know if there's a backstory to this. That still isn't any excuse for blowing a sign out of proportion, but it would signify that this is about a personal dispute, rather than somebody taking offense at Dave Barry.
3) We shouldn't rule out the possibility that the student played a part in creating the incident. He certainly chose questionable allies. Then again, to be fair, it's possible that he simply went to the first allies he could find (which would be understandable).
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