The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal’s “Best of the Web” at WSJ written by the editor, James Taranto.
Bottom Story of the Day
“Classes Not Cancelled Because of Water Outage in Tornillo”—headline, El Paso Times, April 22
Horse Bites Dog—Now That Would Be News
“Dog Bites Police Horse in Brooklyn”—headline, New York Times, April 23
‘The Average Free Speech’
“Leaders with the Student Government Association at Youngstown State University said they decided to act quickly this week when posters showed up on campus promoting ‘Straight Pride’ week next month,” reports WKBN-TV, a local station in the Ohio city:
Campus leaders said while they believe the posters were meant more as satire, especially since no names were associated with them, they determined the flyers went too far with their message.
“When you are talking about minority activism, it is very easy that if you are in the majority to say ‘well, this sort of activism is not necessary. This sort of zeal in your activism is over the top.’ For minorities who experience discrimination, that is not the case,” Student Government Vice President Jacob Schriner-Biggs said.
After consulting with the Vice President of Student Life, it was decided to take the posters down, not necessarily because of its topic but because of the coarse language.
“We have to be careful with the whole free speech issue. But then if you actually read through it, it seemed like it went way further than a free speech issue. There were swear words and took it a little further than the average free speech should go,” Student Government President Michael Slavens said.
“The average free speech”? Sounds as if grade inflation prevails at Youngstown State, in more ways than one.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
