We're on spring break this week, but the recent controversy about alleged racism & sexism in this year's production of the HLS Parody is beginning to receive some national attention, with this well-deserved, critical article from FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

One important thing to note right off the bat is that the supposed "town hall meeting" described in the Record article was not, in fact, a widely publicized meeting. The student groups that planned the meeting had originally meant for it to be a closed meeting, and only decided to open it up to anyone the night before the event. They publicized their meeting by sending out emails to student group leaders suggesting that the message be forwarded on to each group's listserv. But many student groups & journals have policies about not using their listserv for off-topic messages, and declined to forward the messages or simply didn't have time to make a decision or even read the email. The administration claims it did not send out an email to all students because that's not something they do for student group-sponsored events. Nonetheless, this meeting is now being portrayed as a "town hall meeting" where presumably any member of the law school community could voice their opinion. But because of the poor organization & publicity, many did not even hear about the event until after it had already happened.

Although I was unable to attend this meeting (because I too didn't hear about it until after the fact), I talked to some people who did go and heard that some of the concerns expressed were that individual students were being made fun of without their consent, or being made fun of without any prior notice. To which I say, it's about time for some of these law students to grow up - if they can't take some friendly ribbing from their fellow students in a softball show like the Parody, how are they going to survive in the real world? Guess what kids, you're going to be made fun of all the time, without your consent and without any prior notice, and sometimes it's going to upset you. Deal with it.

There is a lot of hysteria from some of the folks who have complained, and lots of misunderstandings. It's easy for these misunderstanding to develop from minor things that turn out to be coincidence. For instance, last year a friend of mine who was acting in the parody played a law student who had been hit by a truck - at first I thought he was doing a parody of me since I had been hit by a truck while walking in a crosswalk in the fall of my 2L year (fortunately I wasn't seriously injured other than some severe bruising), but it turns out it was just a coincidence and he wasn't even aware of my accident.

In addition to the misunderstanding mentioned in the Record article (how hyper-sensitive do you have to be, by the way, to complain about a pretend white Harvard professor portrayed by a white male law student addressing the offhand comment "did you get that?" to a pretend black Harvard law student portrayed by a black female law student in a skit that was about something else entirely), there is another misunderstanding obvious from the article:

"I talk about gender a lot and I have big breasts," stated a 1L in attendance, "does that mean I'm going to be publicly humiliated?"

What this worried 1L evidently fails to realize is that the student parodied for being overly sexual (and who has since complained about being "oversexualized" by the Parody) wasn't parodied because she had big breasts, but because she had numerous nearly nude modelling photos of herself (since taken down) on her Myspace and/or Facebook websites, has done modelling at car shows, and is known for dressing in a manner that emphasizes her physical sexuality. The person responsible for her "oversexualization" is none other than herself. Now, it's certainly her right to present herself in any way she pleases, but it's also the right of the Parody cast to make light of her image.

The Parody, by its very nature, is going to parody things that are out of the ordinary, be they sexual or nonsexual, and this student has certainly gone out of her way to call attention to herself and "earn" a bit of ridicule, just as the other subjects of the Parody have "earned" theirs - by being different. And that's ok, because the Parody is just that - a parody of law school life that highlights the humor of the oddballs that inhabit this place, not some star chamber designed to persecute unique individuals and force them to comply. Sometimes it does a poor job - sometimes it's not very funny, sometimes it's unduly offensive, sometimes it goes on too long & loses its steam, sometimes it's just too damn cheery & upbeat, sometimes it's too cozy with the administration to really be edgy & cutting, but the Parody most certainly doesn't try to enforce a code of speech and behavior on the rest of the law school...unlike, ahem, some folks I could mention.

So, rather than interpreting the Parody's teasing portrayal as a humorous comment on their individual quirkiness, several students have interpreted the Parody in the most negative light possible, and determined that they were made fun of because of stereotypes about their race and/or sex. It's not possible that they themselves might individually be deserving of some teasing - no, no, it must be racism, sexism, or some combination of the two. And if some aspect of their personality or life is distorted or portrayed inaccurately, it's not because the Parody exaggerates for humorous purposes, paints with a broad brush, occasionally has to generalize, and needs to tweak performances to make them work in the overall show. No, it's clearly because the Parody is unapolagetically relying on racial & sexual stereotypes to reenforce the dominant paradigm.

The unfortunate thing is, you can almost always find a way to (mis)interpret anything as racist or sexist if you really go looking for it. I was recently thinking of the Parody's mocking portrayal of a friend of mine - portrayed as a cop-fleeing slacker who spent all his time drinking and partying and wearing beach clothes - and realized how racist/sexist the portrayal could be (mis)construed if he didn't happen to be a white male. But so far it doesn't seem that anyone has stopped and considered the falsifiability of their claims. If everyone portrayed in the parody was portrayed in what could easily be (mis)interpreted as a racist/sexist manner, and many of those portrayed were not actually from minority groups, then doesn't that say a lot more about the bias of the (mis)interpreters than of the performers?

This sort of thing goes beyond mere mainstream political correctness; it shows the consequences of political correctness, having already taken over America's universities, continuing to evolve into a light form of censorship designed to completely neuter (it's not even PC to use that as a metaphor!) anything mildly humorous, fun, edgy, or risque. Anything that has the potential to offend must first be vetted by "affinity groups" to ensure it's uber-PC-compliance and total inoffensiveness. Those who deviate from this script will be accused of racism, sexism, etc. until they repent and pander to their accusers, who more likely than not will never have to prove or even make a very credible case for their claims since the mere accusation of such biases is like an accusation of disease - no one wants to be labeled a Typhoid Mary of Bigotry. The squeaky wheels get the grease, and archaic notions like free speech, academic freedom, and actual, get this, humor, get thrown under the bus of "tolerance" and "diversity" despite the fact that true tolerance and genuine diversity would demand the inclusion and protection of funny, edgy, controversial, biting, and even offensive speech in campus life.