University employee, threatened with punishment for reading controversial book, finally off the hook
Mar 9th, 2008 by Rob
An employee at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis was (sort of) absolved this month after being reprimanded for reading a book about the history of the Ku Klux Klan during a break from his janitorial work last November.
The employee, Keith Sampson (also a student at the university), apparently hit a nerve with coworkers when they noticed he had been reading Notre Dame vs. The Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan, a history text describing an incident that happened in 1924. One more time: he was reading a history book.
When several of Sampson’s coworkers complained, IUPUI’s Affirmative Action Office intervened and sent Sampson a letter accusing him of “racial harassment,” ordering him to stop reading the book in the presence of his colleagues—and threatened him with “serious disciplinary action” should he continue.
Also in the letter:
“You contend that you weren’t aware of the offensive nature of the topic and were reading the book about the KKK to better understand discrimination. However you used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your Black coworkers…”
On February 7 the AAO sent another letter, this one determining that the administrators were “unable to draw any final conclusion” in interpreting Sampson’s actions and informed him no disciplinary action would be taken.
The events are still being bandied about the blogosphere (ugh, promised myself I’d never use that word), despite the fact that the incident was resolved more than a month ago. Still, it makes sense to keep discussions going, given the apparently egregious manner in which the school (mis)handled Sampson’s case.
Thanks to The FIRE for drawing my attention to this case.
What makes this so deliciously ridiculous (notice I refrained from “ironic”) is that the book was about a defeat of the KKK. To repeat, his book about defeating the KKK cause coworkers to feel racially threatened. Were these co-workers KKK members? If these co-workers weren’t white (I’m assuming not), then wouldn’t a book about the defeat of the KKK be somewhat welcome?
You’d think so, right? Maybe there was something else going on there - personal vendettas and whatnot - but still, it seems pretty unreal that the man’s potential punishment was held over his head for so long. Looking at all the supporting documents, I can’t think of any reason why no one picked up on the fact that this was a book about the *defeat* of the Klan (it’s in the title for god’s sake!).
As my posts on the site are decidedly lopsided toward coverage of speech issues on college campuses, I’ve come to realize the extent to which administrators have become oversensitive to *potentially* offensive speech. (See older posts about the closing of a student paper because it included anti-Asian remarks, or the near-firing of a professor because he described the term “wetback” in a class discussion of public viewpoints on immigration).
Gene Policinski, director of the First Amendment Center, summarized the issue nicely when I interviewed him a few weeks ago: “Hate is not tolerated, but I don’t think you can do that by cutting it off in the words; I think you do that by preaching and speaking and demonstrating that those concepts have no validity.”