Did you know "alma mater" means "nursing mother"? My own alma maters include tooo many schools, but I must mention University of Wisconsin (Madison).
It was UW-Madison that gifted Donna Shalala to President Clinton's cabinet where she served alongside It-Takes-a-Village Hillary Clinton and It-Takes-Tanks-and-Napalm Janet Reno. Before leaving for D.C., Shalala was UW-Madison's chancellor and, during her tenure there, she channelled her maternal instinct by passing a speech control policy so safe that English profs were left with three books still allowed on their reading lists: Pat the Bunny, Velveteen Rabbit, and Love You Forever. Under the heading "Unprotected Expressive Behavior Subject to Discipline," Shalala threatened verbal bullies and gesticulators thusly...
A faculty or academic staff member's expressive behavior in an instructional setting may be the basis for discipline if ...the behavior is commonly considered by persons of a particular gender, race, cultural background, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or handicap to be demeaning to members of that group, and ...the conduct makes the instructional setting hostile or intimidating, or demeaning to members of the group of average sensibilities.
Shalala declared her come-to-mommy-and-let-me-kiss-your-owie rules would be enforced in both "instructional" and "noninstructional settings." UW-Madison employees were left with precious few places to exercise the freedoms granted by our Bill of Rights. Since the adoption of Shalala's rules in the late eighties, Madison's speech police have been filing charges, collecting evidence and witnesses, holding trials, making pronouncements of guilt, carrying out censures, and implementing disciplinary actions.
Still today UW-Madison profs are trying to repeal Shalala's schoolmarmish hate-speech rules, but it hardly matters since President Obama is busy remaking all of America into a "safe place." Speaking of which, UW-Madison is at it again. Earlier this year administrators and faculty adopted policies requiring profs to become even more sensitive. The new policy statement was introduced with...