"The University of Kentucky has punished me in a 'sexual misconduct' case, in part, for singing a Beach Boys tune covered by Alvin and the Chipmunks."

Instapundit quotes the first line of a column by Buck Ryan, director of the Citizen Kentucky Project of UK’s Scripps Howard First Amendment Center. It's fascinating that the University of Kentucky punished the director of its First Amendment Center for his verbal expression. You'd think they'd steer clear of trouble with someone in that position, but — as he tells it — the university's Title IX coordinator deprived him of travel funds and an "award worth thousands of dollars" without offering him any process whatsoever.

Now, what did Ryan actually do? He had taught a course called "Storytelling: Exploring China’s Art and Culture" in a University of Kentucky program at a Chinese University, and during "closing ceremonies for an inaugural Education Week," he sang some version of the Beach Boys song "California Girls." We're expected to assume that the Title IX coordinator was plainly wrong to judge his performance to be offensive "language of a sexual nature," but we are not given a full text of the song, let alone a video that would convey the tone of voice and any physical gestures.

If you care about process, give better process to us, the people you seek to enlist in your outrage. Don't begin with the distraction of The Chipmunks. I'm not going to assume that any song covered by The Chipmunks is impossible to rewrite with sexy lyrics. Even if something is an outright children's rhyme from the start, it can be rewritten dirty, as brilliantly demonstrated here (NSFW):



But "California Girls" is not a children's song. It's about finding lots of different women sexually attractive. Evans only quotes one line of the song he sang: "Well, Shanghai [changed from East Coast] girls are hip; I really dig those styles they wear." That sounds relatively inoffensive, but why is a teacher singing to students about digging clothes worn by females? Other lines are sexier, notably "And the Northern girls with the way they kiss/They keep their boyfriends warm at night." And "I dig a French bikini on Hawaii Island dolls."

However that may sound coming from a cartoon chipmunk, it is at least arguably creepy for a teacher to be singing that to students. And I don't know what variations were made in the text — who wore what and how they behaved at night.

I love The Beach Boys, and I think this is relatively wholesome...



... especially when males are singing about females their own age who are not their students.

I'm all for due process, so let's hear the point of view of the Title IX coordinator, and let's see the evidence that person relied on, such as the full lyrics to the song.