Zsa Zsa and the Litigation Explosion; R. Reiland

The problem with Zsa Zsa is that she totally ignored new political correctness, and now she has to pay. She had no idea that the First Amendment's "no law ... abridg ing the freedom of speech, or of the press" had been increasingly loaded down with exemptions, and that zealous politicians and bureaucrats had enacted jackpot penalties to muzzle the outrageous and eradicate faux Mr. Reiland teaches economics at Robert Morris College in Pittsburgh, and is the owner ofAmel's Restaurant in the same city. Zsa Zsa Gabor pas. Stars of the silver screen are now supposed to talk like law clerks. At the L.A. Times, there's a new 19-page list of words that are officially off-limits to 9ce ~ UJ o ~« 567 568 THE FREEMAN • OCTOBER 1994 reporters, lest they might hurt somebody's feelings. Banned are Dutch treat, gypped, welshing (all stereotypes of Euros), plus Chinese fire drill, ghetto, inner city, pow wow, illegal alien, admitted homosexual, queer, hillbilly, white trash, hick, lame, deaf, handicapped, babe, co-ed, divorcee, bra-burner, and gal. Also unprintable is the Kaffir Lily (a botanical slur against South Africans) and Canucks (except on the sports page). Words not fully censored, but warned against, at the L.A. Times are stepmother, WASP, mailman, male nurse, and man made. Reporters at the Washington Post are warned about using oriental, woman law yer, and Red China.

The Iowa City Community School Dis trict has a no-no list for Halloween cos tumes. The district's Equity Affirmative Action Advisory Committee suggests that kids not <:tress as hobos, old men, old women, witches, devils, Indians, slaves, Africans, gypsies; or Nazis. Instead, Marian Coleman, Equity Director for the district, recommends the tykes go door-to-door as Abe Lincoln and Robin Hood (showing her lack of sensitivity to folks who can't handle one more politician or egalitarian with his hand out). Ms. Coleman explains that the school makes costume suggestions because the district doesn't want to get sued for providing a "hostile environment" for chil dren. At Harvard Law School, Professor Alan Dershowitz laments, "These days I will not teach the subject of rape .without having a recording. One woman actually tried to bring sexual harassment charges against me for the way in which I teach rape....

People are really losinga lot, in terms oftheir education, when teachers are frightenedaway from teaching controversial·subjects." Fear of litigation has made it increasingly difficult to find volunteers to work with children. With nobody immune from accu sation, "Every year it's like looking for a needle in a haystack to find enough coach es," says Richard Walker, national spokes man for the Boy Scouts of America. "What you are seeing is sexual abuse hysteria," states Dr. Richard Gardner, Professor of Child Psychology at Columbia University. "People are running scared. You can't touch kids anymore." "The idea that our individual lives and the nation's life can and should be risk-free has grown to be an obsession, driven far and deep into American attitudes," cautioned Henry Fairlie in The New Republic several years ago. "Indeed, the desire for a risk-free society is one of the most debilitating influ ences in America today, progressively en feebling the economy with a mass of safety regulations and a widespread fear of liability rulings, and threatening to create an un buoyant and uninventive society."

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville predicted a "new kind of ser vitude" where a "supreme power covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uni form, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which government is the shepherd." D THEFREEMAN IDEAS ON UBERTY Time to Smarten Up Rather Than Dumb Down by Philip Perlmutter "Dumbing down" seems to be gripping many schools and workplaces, driven by the belief that democracy will be en hanced, education for minorities improved, and bigotry diminished. A variety of tech niques have been devised, such as inflating school grades, passing all students, using different performance measurements for different groups, recruiting people because of their group affiliation rather than individ ual ability, eliminating competency tests, ending separate classes or tracks for tal ented students, and generally discarding any evaluation that results in disparate group findings-whether by race, ethnic group, sex, age, or physical ability.