Crush Liberalism

Victory for common sense

You may recall the story of Keith Sampson, a janitor (and student) at IUPUI (public university in Indiana) who was harrassed and punished by the P.C. thought police and university “affirmative action” department for…reading an anti-Klan book!  Not only was the book anti-Klan, but it was obtained at the university’s own library!

Well, I said I would follow the story, and so I have.  Details:

Mr. Sampson stood accused of “openly reading the book (aren’t books marginally tougher to read when they’re closed? – Ed.) related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black co-workers.” The statement, signed by chief affirmative action officer Lillian Charleston, asserted that her office had completed its investigation of the charges brought by Ms. Nakea William, his co-worker – that Mr. Sampson had continued, despite complaints, to read a book on this “inflammatory topic.”
…
Ludicrous harassment cases are not rare at our institutions of higher learning. But there was undeniably something special – something pure, and glorious – in the clarity of this picture. A university had brought a case against a student on grounds of a book he had been reading.

Savor that line for a moment: a university was attempting to punish a student for reading a book!  Students can read books from Lenin, Chomsky, and other noted leftists, but the minute a kid reads a book with a picture of a klansman (no word on if it was Sen. Robert Byrd) on the cover, an institution of “higher learning” suspends rationality in its rabid embrace of politically correct orthodoxy.  That the book was an anti-Klan book was irrelevant to the genius administrators at IUPUI.

There is good news:

And so the new letter to Mr. Sampson by affirmative action officer Charleston brought word that she wished to clarify her previous letter, and to say it was “permissible for him to read scholarly books or other materials on break time.” About the essential and only theme of the first letter – the “racially abhorrent” subject of the book – or the warnings that any “future substantiated conduct of a similar nature could mean serious disciplinary action” – there was not a word. She had meant in that first letter, she said, only to address “conduct” that caused concern among his co-workers.

What that conduct was, the affirmative action officer did not reveal – but she had delivered the message rewriting the history of the case. Absolutely and for certain there had been no problem about any book he had been reading. 

You know that you have lost any credibility when the ACLU, founded by a communist and a champion of affirmative action and other P.C. causes, fights you!

July 16, 2008 - Posted by crushliberalism | affirmative action, bigotry, political correctness, public education