The Mind Boggles

Betsy Newmark and The Volokh Conspiracy have the story of a man who was cited for racial harassment by an Indiana university because he was reading NOTRE DAME VS. THE KLAN: HOW THE FIGHTING IRISH DEFEATED THE KU KLUX KLAN on his work breaks.

The University said the man demonstrated "disdain and insensitivity" to his co-workers. They also said he "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."

The book is about a successful battle against the KKK -- but reading anything at all about the KKK is considered harassment!

This story almost seems like it must be satire, but it's apparently true.

The book, incidentally, looks rather interesting. The book's author comments on the controversy at the Amazon website.

This is the kind of thing that can make one fear for our nation's future, when we have citizens willing to whine about something so completely absurd, and other citizens willing to back the whiny troublemakers up, regardless of common sense or the First Amendment.