THE WORD THAT CAN NEVER BE MENTIONED

From "Opinion Journal"

"An unnamed employee of the University of Virginia Medical Center is under fire for using a racial slur in a conversation, reports the Cavalier Daily:

University President John T. Casteen, III issued a statement yesterday responding to allegations that a Medical Center employee used a racial epithet during a conversation at a recent staff meeting, calling the usage "offensive" and "insulting." . . .

In an e-mail sent to a black faculty e-mail list, History Prof. Julian Bond, national chair of the NAACP, called for the employee to make a public apology and take sensitivity training.

"My first impulse is that this should be a dismissible infraction--but free speech protections I hold dear tell me that shouldn't be so," Bond wrote, adding that the administration "ought to disavow such language."

"The University expects all members of the University community to be alert to the rights and dignity of all our people and also alert to racial and other insults," said Casteen in his statement.

So what did the employee say that was so offensive? R. Edward Howell, CEO of the medical center, reports it was "something like this: 'I can't believe in this day and age that there's a sports team in our nation's capital named the Redskins. That is as derogatory to Indians as having a team called Niggers would be to blacks.' " In other words, the "offender" used a politically incorrect word in the course of expressing a very PC sentiment. But that's not good enough. Political correctness, like other totalitarian ideologies, demands absolute purity."

That's one way Australia and the USA differ. The High Court of Australia -- no less -- has recently ruled that the word "nigger" is NOT offensive.