Portents of Speech Police?

by Glenn Nofsinger | 11/25/03 6:00am

To the Editor:

Recently James Larimore released a campus-wide announcement concerning recent bias events on campus. I am concerned whenever I see what looks threateningly like the speech police on the horizon, reckoning they'll be followed very quickly by the thought police. Does this mean even saying a word is verboten? I'm sure potentially biased phrases have been uttered on the Dartmouth campus roughly every year since 1769. Now in 2003, "the community" (the deans) are empowered to decide what is bias or a hate crime? One fact is that the "deans for inclusiveness" have no incentive to show that the overwhelming majority on the campus is actually getting along fine. That would mean their position and salary weren't justified. Like other PC bureaucrats, they need to seek out these "hate crime" incidents to justify their existence and mission to create a "community of inclusiveness."