Monday, December 04, 2006

No Free Speech at Johns Hopkins Either: Update

Johns Hopkins University has revealed itself as a thoroughly Stalinist organization. I noted here on Nov 2 the protest about a fancy-dress party invitation posted on the net by the university's Sigma Chi fraternity. The party theme was to be "Halloween in the Hood" and the invitation encouraged guests to wear "regional clothing from our locale" with jewelry including "bling bling ice ice, grills" and "hoochie hoops". The party itself featured a skeleton pirate hanging on a noose.

(Note that no mention of race was made and that almost all pirates were white. And is anybody claiming that bling, grills etc. are NOT to be found in a "Hood"?)

For that bit of innocent fun, the organizer of the party, Justin Park, has now been found guilty of that most dreadful political crime -- "racial stereotyping" (plus a whole list of other preposterous offences that would have done Stalin's apparatchiki proud) -- and has been handed all sorts of punishments, including banishment from the university for a year.

And his fate was decided in absentia -- i.e. it was decided at a secret trial to which he was not invited and at which he was not represented. These Stalinists couldn't arrange a show trial so they denied him justice entirely.

More details here.

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