The fascists who punished the students should be required to watch "Blazing Saddles" and write a 1,000-word essay on the place of ironic humor in satire.

If I may double-post: A few years ago, I told a joke to buddy of mine at our local watering hole. The next day, on campus, he told the joke to someone else, attributing it to me. A busybody who overhead the joke filed a hostile-environment sexual harassment complaint against ... you guessed it, ME. In a rational world, the complaint would have been laughed off. In fact, the university conducted a full investigation. And I was told, in the end, that I represent the university at all times, on and off campus, and therefore my behavior (in a private conversation off campus) was inappropriate.

I got unfriended on Facebook by someone I thought had a sense of humor, because I posted a joke that went like this: "The Obama administration has decided to impose a tax on aspirin - because it's white and it works!"

She declared me "an insensative racist".

Now, I am an old hippie. Liberal? Not any longer. I used to be. But after seeing the shit that's been going on amongst "liberals" anymore, no effin way will I allow myself to be called one. Patriot? Oh yeah. Hippie? Most certainly. Liberal? Never again. Libertarian all the way, baby, with a strong dose of personal responsibilitarian thrown in for good measure.

Blazing Saddles is my favorite movie.

Unbelievable -- what was done to you, DrPinWV.

It turns out I had an enemy in the department who assembled a list of trivial examples of "bad" behavior (the joke mentioned above was among the "baddest") and submitted the list to the powers that be. About 5-6 weeks was spent interviewing all the faculty and most of the grad students in the department. No hearing. No opportunity to question the witnesses. No opportunity even to respond to the "evidence" against me.

The decision was Orwellian. I was found not guilty of sexual harassment, but nevertheless required to undergo professional attitude adjustment at my own expense. I was put on probation for a year, at the end of which I documented the professional "help" I received, and the probation was lifted.

Within a couple weeks a new set of allegations was submitted, and another investigation was launched. Eventually, it became apparent to everyone that I was the victim of allegations that were made in bad faith (many were blatantly and demonstrably false). Nevertheless, I was told by the most senior academic official in the university that "once you're tarred with that brush, you're never clean no matter what." No action was taken against the faculty member who made my life hell for over a year, although she was advised to stop submitting complaints against me.

I vowed to respond to future complaints with a lawsuit. Fortunately, 8 years have passed and I have not had to make good on my vow.

At least the college is being consistent by punishing both players, rather than assuming, as the left usually does, that only whites can be racist.

I look forward to the day when the Speech Police go after two blacks for calling each other "nigger." That should be fun to watch.

And I was told, in the end, that I represent the university at all times, on and off campus, and therefore my behavior (in a private conversation off campus) was inappropriate.

I would have asked to have that put into writing.

I then would have taken that to an employment lawyer and sued for unpaid wages.

I also would have sued the university and that female college for sexual harrasment

colleague

Back in college, I once attended a party thrown by white supremacists (I didn't know that before I got there). There were swastikas on the wall, a white cat with a Hitler mustache marking, and more than a few drunken "Seig Heils" shouted during games of quarters.

There were also several African-American and Jewish attendees who were welcomed and high-fived by the hosts, made to feel welcome by the other guests, and seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.

I don't know if everyone just didn't quite grasp the whole white supremacy thing or if they decided to ignore it. No fights broke out, no violence was done (except to a coffee table which didn't survive a drunken table dance), and no one seemed offended.

Such a party today would have given the pearl-clutching nanny staters the vapors and resulted in everyone in attendance being sent to sensitivity training.

When I was young and at boy scout camp one summer, there was another young kid (black) and I (white) who hung out together; unlike the older scouts and scoutmasters who seemed to self-segregate based upon race we hung out together and joked about our differences.

Our differences were more about city kid vs. country kid than about race.

However, one day, he mentioned that I wasn't like most "honkies" and he thought I was pretty cool. I, being the naïve country kid, had never heard the word honky before and asked him what it meant. After he explained it to me I said "oh, kinda like nigger is to black folks." Yep, he said.

Well, to make a long story short we started to jokingly call each other honky and nigger and just laughing about it all the time.

And, you guessed it, someone over heard us and we were given the riot act about being disrespectful to each other. WTF?

I guess the powers-that-be would rather have us self-segregate like the others and ignore our differences instead of joking about them. Even at 12 years old I thought they were being pretty stupid and petty about it all.

I look at racism as a generational thing at this point. My father (70+) will use the N word on rare occasion but it is not really in a pejorative manner.

My mother doesn't use the N word but looks on the minorities as "special" when they succeed.

My age (40+) grew up with bias and affirmative action as the "norm". We generally don't care if we're on the conservative side. "Can you do you job?" is what we care about. There are the pockets that exist. (A no longer friend from years ago stressed that now "Niggers are living in <small town>, PA" repeatedly. His father 60+ was of the same attitude.)

The "kids" I work with truly don't care and resent the ethnics using affirmative action to try to retain their positions.

The problem is that the prior generation is/has been generally making the rules.

Such as Texas that went to automatic admission for state colleges based on being in the top 10% of the class. Now they are yelling about whites moving into the district to get to be in the top 10%. They aren't complaining that the "migrant" students are so far ahead of the kids that are in that school district.

So there was a recent lawsuit that they needed affirmative action to continue, instead of realizing that equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome.