Evan of Brain Terminal marvels at the modern university campus, where day is night, up is down, and the word "vagina" is inoffensive while the phrase "hunting terrorists" is considered beyond the pale:
On August 29th, the Bucknell University Conservatives Club sent out a campus-wide e-mail announcing an upcoming speaker: Major John Krenson, who had been in Afghanistan "hunting terrorists." Those two words--"hunting terrorists"--resulted in three students being called to Bucknell's Office of the President by Kathy Owens, the Executive Assistant to the President.According to the students, when they arrived at the President's Office for the meeting, Ms. Owens held up a print-out of the offending e-mail and said "we have a problem here," telling the students that the words "hunting terrorists" were offensive. For the next half-hour, the three students were given a lecture on inappropriate phrasing...
Last year, while collecting footage for my upcoming film Indoctrinate U, I noticed that the campus was plastered with flyers that screamed "vagina" in large block letters. Although some people might find these flyers offensive, it is protected speech at Bucknell--as it should be--but apparently the phrase "hunting terrorists" is not.
Bucknell denies having a speech code. But while one could argue that college students should be mature and be able to see the word "vagina" in print without getting upset, the same could be said of the phrase "hunting terrorists."
Posted by kswygert at September 29, 2005 05:29 PM