Is there no end to the illegal suppression of free speech and debate on America’s public university campuses?
Apparently not. The latest perpetrators in the academic assault on the First Amendment are the University of Tennessee (UT) at Knoxville and the 10-campus University of California System.
At UT-Knoxville, the campus Pride Center published a guide instructing university members on the proper use of pronouns. Arguing that terms like “he” and “she” may be insufficiently “inclusive,” the guide recommends replacing these potentially offensive terms with, for example, “ze” and “xe.” Moreover, the new standards carry with them the suggestion that faculty inquire of each student by what pronoun he/she (sorry: make that “ze/xe”) prefers to be addressed.
Apparently, the leaders of UT believe that there is a pressing need for the university to shelter those who find the terms “he” and “she” offensive. But UT’s sensitivity toward those who might be offended has been taken a step further by the University of California System, whose Board of Regents is considering As a Washington Post op ed points out, a number of pressing issues today, immigration and marriage among them, could become subject to censorship on the grounds that certain opinions on these issues constitute “intolerance,” defined by the university as “unwelcome conduct motivated by discrimination against, or hatred toward, other individuals or groups.”
