Almost everyone who has commented to me after reading MPA has said they thought "it could happen." I find this a little disturbing, frankly, as I just made the whole thing up when I started writing in 1999. So...I've recently been trying to educate myself a little more about what is going on in the world as regards tolerance in general. The internet can be a beautiful thing. I typed in "tolerance re-education" on ask.com and came up with...

Scott Savage, a librarian at Ohio State University-Mansfield. He's on a committee that suggests required reading for incoming freshman and, earlier this year, suggested four books. Because of his suggestions, three professors on campus filed a sexual harassment claim against Mr. Savage. The faculty voted to have him investigated, then the vote was "rescinded two days later for legal reasons."

One of his colleagues sent a faculty e-mail about one of the suggestions -- The Marketing of Evil. He wrote:

"… I am not shocked, only deeply saddened – and THREATENED – that such mindless folks are on this great campus. … You have made me fearful and uneasy being a gay man on this campus. I am, in fact, notifying the OSU-M campus, and Ohio State University in general, that I no longer feel safe doing my job. I am being harassed."

I looked at blurbs of the four book suggestions and am fully willing to concede, for the sake of brevity, that they look like they'd fall under the purview of "right wing" literature. However, others on the committee suggested books that were patently "left wing" in nature and received not a hint of accusation. And they shouldn't have.

My question -- how is it that Mr. Savage was committing threatening acts merely by suggesting the reading of a book that puts forth a view that is in the minority on college campuses?

Quotes taken from here -- click to read the whole article.