On the local news, I saw coverage of how CU students are protesting to get Ward Churchill reinstated.
They played a clip of a kid, a lad who literally secreted THC from his pores, who made Dead Chinaman Cameron Huang look cleanly and groomed, and who had an opinion. He would like to be a professor someday, and he's concerned about the state of free speech in this country if we don't let Churchill have his voice.
Don Imus made a flippantly disprespectful comment, off the cuff, and in jest. He made about a group of women who are having an otherwise wonderful time.
That's not what Ward Churchill did. He wrote an essay. He took the time to really think out his points. He made sure to drive his thoughts home as firmly as he knew how. What he said was incredibly offensive, insensitive and hateful. He wrote it about people, about a nation, that were suffering one of the worst tragedies we've seen in a century.
Don Imus misused his right to free speech in a trivial ignorable, everyday fashion. Ward Churchill misused his right to free speech in a manner so egregious, so indefensible, that it requires a once in a generation tragedy to set the stage for something so utterly inexcusable.
And that's not all... Ward Churchill is also a liar, a plagiarist, and a host of other things which are not acceptable in academia. In fact, if not for his disgusting views, he probably would have been run off long ago.
That's what we've come to... Free speech is a precious commodity when it comes to a man like Ward Churchill, a man who abuses that right in the most calculated, destructive fashion possible. Free speech is meaningless when it stands in the way of the Political Correctness industry.