Judging a Book by its Cover
For those who doubt that the university has become a very inhospitable place, take a look at the case of Keith John Sampson. Sampson, an employee of Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis, was disciplined for reading the wrong book in public. His co-worker was offended by his choice of literature.
In November 2007, Sampson—who works in the school’s janitorial department and is ten credits away from a degree in communications—was notified by Lillian Charleston of IUPUI’s Affirmative Action Office (AAO) that two co-workers had filed a racial harassment complaint against him. The AAO alleged that by reading a book on the KKK in the break room, Sampson had engaged in racial harassment. Sampson attempted to explain that the book, written by Todd Tucker, was a historical account of the events on two days in May 1924, when a group of Notre Dame students fought with members of the Ku Klux Klan. His explanation was dismissed, and he later received a letter from Charleston that determined he was guilty of racial harassment. Charleston wrote that his failures included “openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject.”
For those who think the content of the book matters, here’s a snippet from Amazon . . .
Book Description
The riveting tale of the clash of two powerful institutions Notre Dame and the Ku Klux Klan that changed both institutions and America forever.In 1924, students of the University of Notre Dame and members of the Ku Klux Klan faced off in a violent confrontation in South Bend, Indiana. This shocking and true hidden chapter in Catholic and American history is recounted in Notre Dame vs. The Klan, the story of two uniquely American institutions that rose to power amidst rampant anti-Catholicism and collided during a riotous weekend.
About the Author
Todd Tucker received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Notre Dame and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear submarine force. He lives in Valparaiso, Indiana with his family.
. . . and a comment by the author:
Anybody taking five minutes to assess the contents of its page on Amazon could determine rapidly that the book is enthusiastically anti-Klan. You could perhaps argue that this shouldn’t matter - a college campus ought to be a safe haven for exploration of ideas. But I do think it makes this situation even more outrageous that the good people at IUPUI’s affirmative action office didn’t care about that. My more recent book has as its heroes religious pacifists during World War II - I think it’s safe to conclude I don’t have any kind of right-wing axe to grind.
But if the author did have a right-wing axe to grind, then the university might have had a more difficult time admitting its mistake. Fortunately for Sampson, the Affirmative Action Apparatchiks were so demonstrably stupid in this case that it took only six months and the intervention of the ACLU and FIRE to clear Sampson’s record.
