We are surrounded by morons.

Keith Sampson works as a janitor at Indiana University - Purdue University in Indianapolis. He is also studying for a degree in communications there. During his work breaks he would routinely sit down and read books. And that is what got him in trouble. You need to read this story because you aren’t going to believe the utter stupidity of the anti-discrimination at the University -- along with the incredible stupidity of the woman who caused the ruckus.

Sampson was reading a book Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fight Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan. Back in 1924 the Klan went to South Bend, Indiana, to hold a rally and to insult the famous Catholic school located there. The students at Notre Dame, shall we say, mixed it up with the Klan and sent those cowards in sheets running for their backwater tent revival for solace.

You’d think that a story about plucky university students sticking it to the smarmy bigots that inhabit the Klan would be reading that was applauded. Not so.

During his work break Sampson was sitting in the break room minding his own business while reading this book. He was told by a fellow employee, Nakea Vincent, that she was insulted and offended because he was reading a book that mentioned the Klan. Sampson tried to tell this ignoramus that the book was anti-Klan but she didn’t want to hear it. She was offended and in the Nanny State mere offense is proof positive that someone is guilty of discrimination.

The local union shop steward (need I saw more about his intelligence) berated Sampson for reading the book. He compared it to bringing hard core pornography to work. Hey, I know it’s dumb but I did warn you that he was a union official! At no point did it seem to sink into the heads of these morons that Sampson’s book was anti-Klan!

A few weeks go by when Sampson is summoned to Grand Inquisitor Marguerite Watkins’ office. She informs him that he is now charged with heresy, I mean, with reading a book that the clearly ignorant Vincent found offensive -- offense entirely due to own stupidity. Because the moron was offended than Watkins committed the crime of “racial harassment”. Too bad they don’t have a word to describe the harassment of intelligent readers by fools.

Apparently the mad censors are at work to censor books, not because they even promote racism, since this was an antiracist book, but merely on the premise that some mental midget is irrationally offended by something she doesn’t understand. In other words, Sampson is to lose his rights because Nakea Vincent is mentally challenged. And the professional discrimination sniffers at the Affirmative Action Office told Sampson that they find him guilty based on their investigation. I quote the letter from the Office of the Holy Inquisition:

“Upon review of this matter, we conclude that your conduct constitutes racial harassment in that you demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your co-workers who repeated requested that you refrain from reading the book which has such an inflammatory and offensive topic in their presence.”

Note that his entire crime is that he read a book which some silly woman found offensive purely based on her ignorance of the book. The book is not racist but Nakea Vincent is offended. If Mr. Sampson found stupid women offensive would that be sufficient reason to ban Ms. Vincent from the break room?

They also found that it is reasonable for Vincent to control the reading habits of her fellow employees. What sort of nonsense is this? It is based on the absurd view that Vincent’s offense, no matter how rooted it be in her own ignorance, is sufficient reason to strip another individual of his rights. She has superior rights because she is offended.

Sampson is chastised further because he was ordered by Inquisitor Watkins “to stop reading the book” around other people. Instead he was to sit in a separate area, away from others, if he wished to read this book. This is sort of an intellectual apartheid. A Jim Crow law for people who are smarter than offended idiots.

Well, when word got out what this book-burning brigade of politically correct bureaucrats were doing they did a quick retreat. After the Orwellian “Affirmative Action Officer Lillian Charleston” told Sampson that reading the book was racial harassment and informing him that dire consequences could follow Charleston did a quick turnaround in the face of some publicity.

Her second letter was, she said, to replace her first letter. Maybe drop it down the memory hole. Now she tells him that she didn’t mean to “imply that it is impermissible for you or to limit your ability to read scholarly books or other such literature during break times.”

From charging him with racial harassment, and finding him guilty, she now says she was merely trying “to address conduct on your part that raised concern on the part of your co-workers.” See Nakea Vincent was suffering from delusions of stupidity, she was just concerned. God, these people can’t even weasel well without couching words with their own lingo. Charging someone with racial harassment and threatening severe consequences is now just “addressing conduct”.

From saying he was guilty of racial harassment Charleston now says she has no “final conclusion concerning what was intended by the conduct.” Get that? “Intended by the conduct?” Okay, lets say it real slow for the bureaucrat. His intended conduct was to read a book! Case closed.

Disclosure: It is with some embarrassment that I have to confess that I took courses at Purdue University.