I am still more concerned about government interference than private interference. I hate private interference (ie, no Christmas decorations at your desk in December please, or you will be reported! No food carts that play Christmas jingles!). But you *can* leave your job, whereas you cannot leave your government. And we grant government power and force over our lives to maintain civilization.

In the end, I’m still hoping for a national movement against all this government and corporate thought-policing. A movement whose catchphrase might very well be “Stop Being So Super-Sensitive!” There’s still enough basic American pragmatism and reasonableness around that I remain hopeful.

To put things in an even simpler fashion, a university not allowing people working or studying there to read its library books is a like a company, which universities are not classified as in the private economic industry, not allowing its employees to read manuals on skills, technology, machines, and company policy.

I didn’t know that reading a book was the same as telling a joke in social circles, Mike.

Otherwise, goodbye. And don’t we tend, here, to give employers a great deal of leeway about what is acceptable and what isn’t?

The universities don’t employ anyone. They are parasitic organisms based upon grant money and federal largesse, which constitutes most of their expenses, rather than tuition.

They didn’t want to hear the truth. The office ruled that my “repeatedly reading the book . . . constitutes racial harassment in that you demonstrated disdain and insensitivity to your co-workers.”

I kept hearing that the Patriot Act would gang up on library readers. Where are these crickets now? Chirp chirping? No.

If the internet was that way, Book wouldn’t need Akismet for spam.

Mike…”Let’s be clear: This is not the government thought police at work”…isn’t this a state university? If it is, then its actions are effectively government actions, and court decisions have found that it is bound by the First Amendment.