A test in political correctness...

Nothing like having a sense of humor. Some students at Rutgers try to see if they can go over the top in political correctness:

On March 9, James O'Keefe, editor in chief of the Rutgers Centurion, Kian Barry, Natalie Poole and I entered the office of an assistant director of Rutgers Dining Services. We had come to perform an experiment and test a hypothesis in political correctness: Could we, by way of legitimate-sounding argument, convince the dining halls to remove the cereal Lucky Charms because of content either racist or promoting of negative and offensive stereotypes about Irish Americans - three-leafed clovers, leprechauns, etc.?

Now, I'm sure that everyone's thinking, "Yea, right." So were we - half of our planning went into keeping a straight face, and much as we wanted to be taken seriously for a good story, inside we all silently prayed that logic would prevail and we'd be kicked out of there faster than Rodney Dangerfield at a wake.

Alas, as it is with so many prayers nowadays, ours went unanswered. The woman we spoke with - who shall remain nameless for purposes of decency - was at once attentive and understanding. She took diligent notes as James and I went over the Rutgers University speech codes on defamation with a fine-toothed comb. She nodded in silent co-suffering as we outlined the many hardships Irish-American immigrants had faced. Even after she spotted the hidden camera and made us turn it off, nothing in her demeanor changed, and she assured us that the issue would be brought up before the next committee on foodstuffs ordered by the dining halls, but that "we might not even have to take it that far."

I had started the process off with a letter to Dining Services about a student who had been made to feel "uncomfortable about his/her ethnicity" at the dining halls. While I commend everyone in Dining Services for expediting that problem quickly by setting up the appointment and for both professional and sympathetic attitudes, I can only plant my face in my hands and weep at the notion that something so ridiculous could take place in our day and on our campus.