Reader Bob Woolley writes to propose an addition to the growing glossary of words describing campus nonsense:

Reading stories on your blog lately has made me think that we need a specific, catchy term for the incidents you chronicle--conservative speakers being disallowed on campus, professors hounded and disciplined for a single politically incorrect word or for criticizing the administration, conservative students' opinions roasted in classes, administrators treating conservative student groups poorly, etc.

I suggest "political harassment."

A Google search tells me that the phrase has been used in lots of different contexts, but nothing consistent. As Alice in Wonderland has it, it means whatever the speaker means it to mean. In the first 50 hits or so, I find one clear use in the campus context--at the very end of this story.

The term "harassment" has become so intensely loaded with shameful and alarming overtones that I find it immensely satisfying to think of all those who have infused it with such potency suddenly finding it turned accusatively against them.

The term certainly fits. The incidents described are every bit as worthy of being labeled "harassment" as the catcalls and open leering that we have come to think of as sexual harassment, or the hateful epithets of racial harassment.

I prefer the more loaded term "discrimination against minorities," which accurately describes the position of conservatives on elite campuses and the manner in which they are treated in relation to other groups. No one--and certainly not university administrators--wants to be subject to this accusation.

Upond reading the details of the exchange between the Cornell professors and the student who claims to have been harassed (see the link in Bob Woolley's original post), the line between harasser and harassee becomes rather blurred.

My favorite part is where the student, in his article in the Cornell Daily Sun, quotes the professor's email: "I cannot engage in a debate with you because you will quote this email without permission." Quoted, naturally, without permission. My sympathies for the student begin to fade at that point, and fade further as the article develops.

Incidents where conservative campus groups are muzzled are wrong. But one should keep in mind that these controversial events (Woolley's "political harassment") quite often occur after conservatives have themselves made controversial, provocative, and one might even say, harassing, statements about others.

The widely-reported incident at Roger Williams University in Providence might be an example of a conservative group engaging in a flagrant provocation. To my knowledge, the College Republicans at RIU were not censored by their university administration, and the $250 award was in fact given out.

Inside the PC world, the word 'harassment' is loaded to mean the imposing of demeaning acts on a victim, and immediately makes the imposer a criminal. This looks to be the intent of the construct of 'political harassment'.

Outside that world, harassment can mean anything from mild joshing to military harassing fire to keep the enemy's head down. Or as my old platoon sergeant used it, to impose action and duties on your own men now peacefully resting.

I sympathize with the intent of finding a concise term for the descriptions in your first paragraph, but haven't yet found one that fits all cases. And love the reversal of the opposition's trump charge against them - but dangit, were I to use 'political harassment' as a serious charge, I'd feel that somehow I myself would be crossing the PC line and invoking the same demons that the leftie bigots use.

The discovery of this elusive term will definitely brighten the world, and furnish good ammunition to those sorely in need.

I think that using "discrimination against minorities" in lieu of "political harassment", while funny, misconstrues the behavior the phrase is intended to target.

Political harassment is pretty dead-on, and I can just picture it being written into speech codes as a banned behavior. This of course, would be double-edged, because just speaking a conservative view will likely be construed as political harassment.

I vote 'yea' on coining the term, but at the same time, give a resounding 'nay' for inducting it into the realm of political correctness, because all that'll do is turn it against us. I can see it now: "I hate Bush, he's a *bleep*!" "Isn't that just a bit ridiculous of you to say without giving any logical support to the statement?" "Political harassment, you're not letting me be liberal!" Here's where the student gets slammed with an essay to write on just why it's wrong to speak out against liberalism, with the penalty for not writing it being expulsion. Just brilliant.

So as an afterthought, I'll abstain from saying either way, it'll help just as much as it'll hurt.

I like "political intimidation," which seems to me to describe what's going on.

As I said last month in the comments at Discriminations, I think the right should strictly avoid appropriating the language and tactics of identity politics, except for purposes of satire. Using these concepts with a straight face legitimates their use by others. With the possible exception of hardcore libretarians, I think we can agree that harassment laws designed to protect people from sexual extortion are a good thing, but once it gets into "hostile environment" grounds it gets very sketchy, and the current campus tendency to label disagreement as harassment is downright ridiculous. abusing the term harassment ourselves does nothing to solve this.

I like it. Unlike telling off-color jokes, trying to silence people and effectively running them off campus qualifies as harassment.

I find it interesting that already in this thread at least one person has insinuated that speaking "provocatively" constitutes a form of harassment. "Provocation" here meaning "speaking while conservative," of course.

Becareful what you wish for, you may get it. I can now see PH being added to the list of things you can't do/say/think on campus.

Will the first charge of PH be againt a "Liberal" calling a hawk, conservative or libertarian a Nazi, or a Idiotarian pressing charges against someone who whooped him/her fair and square in an otherwise rational debate?

The best approach is to remove "talk-crime" from the table completely, not to hand the enemies of free speech yet *another* club to swing around.

I'm not certain that we can resort to the claim of "harassment" as used by the PC crowd. Being a new reader to this blog, I hesitate to throw in my two cents, but PH sort of misses the point, doesn't it. Certainly what we mean to describe is political - but not political in a fair or even competitive way - in the way we mean "office politics" or something similar. And not all things political are necessarily bad, either. We needn't stigmatize "political" more than we already have. What we see in the enforcement of political correctness and the ferreting out and disregard of conservative views is somethign much more strictly ideological. And it is inquisitional in a way that does not tolerate departure from the dogma of academe. I suggest "ideological inquisition" to describe the process of political correctness and censoring conservatives.

Those who are saying that adopting the term "Political Harassment" are probably mistaken. It is no more "the language of the left" than the phrase "Political Correctness" is. Indeed, the left invented the phrase "Politically Correct" before the right latched onto it and began using it. Although the left does still use it, and now it belongs to everybody.

I fail to see why using accurate language is therefore a mistake. Indeed, a serious problem has become that the term "politically correct" has become so watered down as to mean little. It used to describe the PC thought-police antics on campuses and in corporate America. Now it's too sissified and gets applied to too many things.

"Political Harassment" is a good substitute, for it goes back to what the term "Not Politically Correct" was supposed to identify in the first place.

Besides, it's about time we did more of this, not less. It's time to start pointing out that "diversity" appears to exclude intellectual and religious diversity in too many places. It's time to point out that if you can racially or sexually harass someone, you can politically harass them too. I cannot see how this would be harmful in the long run, for it will only help people to realize how out-of-control this sort of thinking has become.

Forget whether this is about the left or the right or the libertarians or whatever. Labels such as "liberal" and "conservative" don't mean anything--I myself am often called a conservative by leftists and a liberal by rightits when in fact I have things in common with them both. But I loath political harassment, and I know it's become widespread in some areas, especially in schools.

This is about freedom of thought and respect for a genuine liberal education.