The professor's right not to be offended

Last week I noted that the Israeli flag had been deemed an "offensive" symbol at the Australian National University (ANU). It turns out the guy who posted this horrible, offensive flag to his office door is Tex, and it's even worse than I thought - some touchy-feely wankers at ANU were also offended by the photo of Saddam Hussein, with bullet holes through it, which he had also posted:

Yesiree, in an institution where printed material is displayed comparing John Howard and Dubya to Adolf hitler, and where a university-wide mailing list is used to advertise protest marches against our "racist" government (despite a policy stating that they are to be used only for university administrative matters), where conversations over coffee breaks routinely refer to conservative voters as lunatics, idiots and warmongers, I have been asked to remove the flag of a civilised, democratic country and a picture of a mass-murderer with bullet holes in it. All on the grounds of not creating an offensive and discriminatory workplace for my lovely colleagues.

Oddly, the Saddam target had been on display since I returned from the USA back in May 2003. It had aroused no complaint, and neither had any of my other decorations.

Yet days after sticking a Jewish symbol to my door, I'm asked to remove it, on the grounds that it is offensive imagery. It was also perfectly obvious from what I was told that it was the nasty Jewflag that was the most problematic image.

Just think about this: I live in a democratic country, in the year 2004, and a Jewish flag is considered offensive imagery.

On my rare visits to university campuses, I can't walk 10 feet without seeing some lefty garbage posted that I find deeply offensive. And so what? What good is a university if people are not going to have their deeply cherished beliefs challenged?

That's the line you always hear from professors on the radical left, anyway. And look what happens the minute their cherished beliefs are challenged.

These are the people, of course, who moan and bitch about the "stifling of dissent" in evil capitalist Amerikkka. What a bunch of disgusting hypocrites.

One good thing can come from this story: if Tex is anything like the way he portrays himself on his excellent blog, he will not take this lying down.

Posted by damian at January 17, 2004 03:32 PM