College sensitivity gone wild
Published 12:01 am Friday, August 5, 2011
The University of Tennessee created a baloney controversy this week and served it up on a silver platter. It will be served back to them, ad nauseam.
The heartburn-producing facts: University officials pulled breath mints poking fun at President Obama from the shelves of UT’s bookstore after a student and a state legislator found the satirical mints offensive, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported Thursday.
State Rep. Joe Armstrong, a Democrat, told the paper he received a call from a student who was bothered by the mints and so visited the bookstore himself.
Warning: Political discourse and free speech can be harsh and rough, but it is protected. The offending language is reprinted here to accurately reflect the dilemma the university faced.
The tin of breath mints carries an image of Obama and the words, “This is change? Disappointmints.”
Ouch?
If that’s offensive, someone has some pretty thin mints.
But “I’m offended” is not part of the First Amendment equation, despite the weight we have given to that overbearing notion.
Bookstore manager David Kent removed the candy after Armstrong showed up and complained. Kent told the Knoxville paper that the store had no intention of offending anyone with the mints, and this was the first complaint, ever. The store carried similar mints when President George W. Bush was in office.
Armstrong explained his view to the paper this way:
“When you operate on state and federal dollars, you ought to be sensitive to those type of politically specific products,” he said. “If it was a private entity or corporation or store (that’s different), but this is a state university. We certainly don’t want in any way to put the university in a bad light by having those political (products), particularly aimed at defaming the president.”
How about some mints that say: Defamation has a legal meaning, and expressing disappointment is not even close.
Armstrong said he did not infringe on free speech because the product wasn’t a textbook, but a “discretionary product” that wasn’t “viewpoint neutral.”
(“Viewpoint neutral” sounds like an Orwellian Sunday morning “news” program.)
Meanwhile, in the you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up department, the university’s School of Journalism and Electronic Media this spring dedicated a permanent First Amendment Kiosk on campus as part of a broader program with the law school, according to the university’s website.
The kiosk has interactive materials related to the First Amendment, specifically freedom of the press and of speech, with different features to be added regularly. Perhaps Rep. Armstrong could avail himself of the information, and then add his own story as a “learning momint.”
