FIRE – Victory at IUPUI: Student-Employee Found Guilty of Racial Harassment for Reading a Book Now Cleared of All Charges Incredible story. What is wrong with these people? You can’t even read histories anymore?
Administrators at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) have revoked their finding that a student-employee was guilty of racial harassment merely for publicly reading the book Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan. Following pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), IUPUI has declared that Keith John Sampson’s record is clear and said it will reexamine its affirmative action procedures relating to internal complaints.
“Just when you’d thought you’d seen every crazy act of censorship a college administrator can dream up, along comes a case where a student is found guilty of racial harassment simply for reading a book,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “Thankfully, with time and public outrage, IUPUI’s administration recognized Keith John Sampson had done nothing wrong and acknowledged that the First Amendment protects not only what you say, but also what you read.”
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.”
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| Lillian Charleston. She even looks self-righteous. |
Found by jrc.
When I was in the army in the late 70s. in basic training, I was one of only 5 white guys in my barracks. After lights out, the “others” would call out to each other loudly, “If you’re white, you’re wrong!” And ever since then, I feel like I am always hearing it.