Often, the student press is the biggest thorn in the side of higher ed administrators who espouse a doctrine of repressive tolerance. Friday, I wrote about how admins at Southwest Missouri State University are (illegally) investigating the editor of the student paper and the paper's faculty sponsor for publishing a cartoon Native American students found offensive. FIRE, which is defending the student editor and the faculty advisor, notes that similar events have taken place recently at Carnegie Mellon, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and the University of Scranton, where "offensive" April Fool's issues have inspired administrators to crack down on free speech in the name of promoting sensitivity and tolerance:

At Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, the April Foolís issue of The Tartan led the university to threaten campus journalists with punishment and to establish a ìcontent review boardî for future issues. At the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Chancellor Nancy Belck has said that she would ìnot tolerateî an April Foolís issue of student newspaper The Gateway called ìThe Ghettoway,î and the newspaper staff agreed to sensitivity training. At the University of Scranton, the faculty and student publications board fired the student editor of The Aquinas and confiscated thousands of copies of a satirical April Foolís edition, changed the locks on the newspaperís offices, and suspended the publication.

Finally, there is the situation at Rutgers, where the student paper's publication of a cartoon that either mocked the Holocaust or mocked Holocaust denial or mocked both (it all depends how you look at it), drew the ire of just about everyone on campus. Faculty and students are calling for the paper's funding--it receives $15,000 a year from discretionary student funds--to be withdrawn, while Rutgers' president has condemned the cartoon as "outrageous in its cruelty" and asked the paper's staff to apologize publicly for running the cartoon. The University Senate also passed a resolution distancing itself from the cartoon. What differentiates this case from the others? Rutgers recognizes that the paper is within its rights to publish offensive material, and has formally issued a Q&A-style press release to clarify the issues for the university community and the general public. It's an exemplary document, one that the addled administrators at the schools cited above might want to take as a model in future.

UPDATE: The student editors of the Rutgers paper are going to issue an apology.

The folks pushing these double standards will, in the long run, encourage precisely that which they hope to eradicate... racial and sexual hatred and violence. Ironic, isn't it?

Banning behavior and language in the despised group (white hetero men) that is encouraged in the preferred groups (blacks, women and gays) will ultimately give the despised group no recourse other than outright defiance. It will happen.

Almost immediately, the preferred group presses its advantage by doubling and tripling its use of the behavior and language prohibited in the despised group... witness the prolific use of the banned "n" word by blacks. This is a form of taunting, and feminist women and gays have followed suit in their own ways.

Racial and sexual hatred are incited by this obvious, grating and intentional double standard. Give the despised group no way out and the result will be violence, from both sides. The spate of faked hate crimes is a window into the future of how that violence will be played out. Leftists like the Weathermen thought that engendering such violence, while hypocritical, was defensible in view of the long term goal of revolution. Remember the Weathermen's goal -- inciting racial warfare. Reichstag fires have long been a primary weapon in the leftist arsenal.

And look at it from the view of a young, uneducated white hetero man. If you always stand accused of racism, sexism and homophobia... you might as well be guilty of it. It is the natural logic of human psychology and emotions. If the left is going to fake violence, or commit it and blame it on you, you might as well get the pleasure of committing it.

Does not portend for a peaceful future.

For several centuries since the Enlightenment, universalism (in the sense that common humanity trumps race, nationality, and gender) has been gaining in acceptance. There were local setbacks, like Naziism, but the overall trend was upwards. Intellectuals were usually the advance guard of this trend. Now, large numbers academic intellectuals seem to have switched sides and adopted a highly particularist worldview, to the point that they sound very much like "blood and soil" reactionaries of former times.

Why?

Thanks for the link to the Rutgers FAQ. It is short, sensible, concise, and to the point.

AMac, I agree that the Rutgers FAQ is a well thought out document. It walks a very well-reasoned line that puts distance between the University and the cartoon it found offensive and the right of the paper to be offensive. (Shame that any university feels compelled to explain what should be obvious to all who have completed a high school civics class but these are the times we live in.)

I also thought the public comments of the editor Berke in response were very well thought out. They reflect well on his ability to engage in self-critical analysis and respond sincerely without engaging in the type of self-abasement that often accompanies these things.

I think I mentioned the Natrat article.