Co~Workers can tell you what to read

At the University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) a janitor (who is also enrolled as a student) was reading "Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan" (Loyola Press), by Todd Tucker.

On the basis of the cover alone, a co-worker sitting across from Sampson complained that the book was offensive. The cover shows the Notre Dame dome and two burning crosses amid a crowd of robed and hooded Klansmen.

The pages inside tell the story of a 1924 street fight between Notre Dame students and Klansmen, who had gathered in South Bend purposely to terrorize the university's Catholic students. The clash lasted two days, during which the fighting Irish prevailed, and is recognized as a turning point in Klan history.

But never mind. The co-worker apparently wasn't interested in the content. The cover art was deemed traumatizing enough to prompt the shop steward to reprimand Sampson, saying that reading a book about the Klan was comparable to bringing pornography into the workplace.

A few weeks later, Sampson heard from the school's affirmative action office that a racial harassment complaint had been filed against him. In a November 2007 letter, affirmative action officer Lillian Charleston told Sampson that he demonstrated "disdain and insensitivity" to his co-workers.

"You used extremely poor judgment by insisting on openly reading the book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject in the presence of your black co-workers."

So now your co-workes get to decide what you can and can't read on your break? Maybe a better question would be?

What could be more hostile in a university environment than investigating a student's reading choices on the basis of a bystander's perceptions? That's not just hostile, but sinister.