Monday, April 07, 2008

Speech Code of the Month: Murray State University (Kentucky)

We read:
"The Women's Center at Murray State maintains a guide to sexual harassment that provides students with numerous examples of sexual harassment, including (among others):

* "Calling a person a doll, babe, or honey"

* "Making sexual innuendoes"

* "Telling sexual jokes or stories"

* "Turning discussions to sexual topics"

* "Looking a person up and down (elevator eyes)"

* "Displaying sexual and/or derogatory comments about men/women on coffee mugs, hats, clothing, etc."

Harassment by a coffee mug? Really?

In all seriousness, many universities maintain these ludicrous lists of prohibited conduct (see Davidson College, our March 2006 Speech Code of the Month, for another example), and such lists often transform otherwise acceptable sexual harassment policies into unconstitutionally overbroad ones. Murray State is just such an example; while the stated definition of sexual harassment is "conduct that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working/learning environment," the subsequent list of prohibited conduct (and beverage paraphernalia) would lead anyone reading the policy to believe that the examples on that list were prohibited outright, regardless of whether they rose to the level of severity and pervasiveness necessary to constitute actual harassment.

As a public university, Murray State cannot lawfully prohibit speech protected by the First Amendment, but this policy does just that.

Source

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

The moral here? Don't look up and down on some babe, just stare at her tits and don't deviate.

Anonymous said...

I live in KY and Murray is just 20 minutes away. I was really hoping we'd be able to stay out of the PC crap just a little bit longer as I recover from my brainwashing as a NYer.

Anonymous said...

Can you get a good price on the jam?

Anonymous said...

How to pick up chicks in an emancipated world:

Calling a hottie a doll, babe, or honey, make sexual innuendoes, telling sexual jokes and stories, turn discussions to sexual topics, looking an hourglass up and down (using "elevator eyes" that unabashedly return to actual eye contact), and display sexual interest in general. Proven to work.

10K men say it's so:
http://www.fastseduction.com

-=N=-