Told to "relax and allow this" writing assignment "to work for you," a college student describes his sexual attraction to various female instructors...

... and is suspended — from Oakland University — for violating a rule that says "nor shall any person in any way intimidate, harass, threaten or assault any person engaged in lawful activities on the campus."

While the entries describe various women in ways that might make them identifiable to those on campus, and are written in ways many would find immature or insulting, the entries don't contain threats against any of the women. 

Oh, lord, they've scanned his Mead composition book and posted it on line, with his name. Talk about intimidation and harassment! Oh, no wait. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which is representing the student, has put the PDF up, so any humiliation involved in making the writing available is self-inflicted. I wasn't going to link to it or name the young man if it was the university that was exposing it, but Joseph Corlett is doing this to himself. Reading. Crossing out "young" because I just read the part, under the title "Hot for Teacher" where he writes: "She is short, height/weight proportionate and brunette like my wife of thirty (30) years..."

I'll be 56 in November of 2011... It was refreshing to have some space in my brain to think about thoughts other than sex. Like dropping from a hundred times a day to just 20. What a relief, but you don't get wood at the titty bars anymore. Small tradeoff.

I can't believe I just wrote that but I did and it's staying. I don't give a fuck. It is what it is. I WILL NOT TEAR THIS PAGE. 

You know, in those Mead composition books, one page is attached to another one, on the other side of the binding. Actions have consequences.

Back to the article link:

FIRE maintains that Corlett's rights were violated by the university, and that there was no reason to treat him as threatening. "It is not against the law to be — or to be perceived as — a creep," said Adam Kissel, vice president of FIRE. Noting that many great writers have expressed their admiration for women (in ways that shocked and offended many), Kissel said, "I can hardly imagine what kind of counseling Oakland would have required for Quentin Tarantino, Vladimir Nabokov, or Stephen King."

Officials at Oakland, a public institution in Michigan, declined to comment on the case, and said that the institution could not do so without violating privacy rules. 

Rights. Everywhere: rights. Boxed in on all sides. One question is: If Quentin Tarantino, Vladimir Nabokov, or Stephen King submitted to a writing class at a university in California Michigan that authorities wielding rules against sexual harassment, what would they write? One answer is: That's a big "if."

Now, the teachers' feelings of intimidation also had to do with guns. The file contains a complaint about Corlett's "gun obsession." Corlett had, in fact written a letter to the student newspaper in support of concealed carry rights on campus.

"I cannot feel safe knowing that he might have a weapon with him at any time. He might have had a gun in his backpack when he sat 20 feet away from me at the writing center last week..." [a teacher wrote].

The article, at Inside Higher Ed, continues:

The Corlett dispute is one in a series of instances in which students have been scrutinized for their work in writing classes -- more typically when the writing is explicitly dealing with violence. Colleges and universities have been criticized both for failing to act on student writing and for overreacting. The issue is complicated, writing instructors say. Instructors note that many students are immature, aren't good writers and mix fantasy and reality without much attempt to differentiate the two...

The article fails to include the fact — which jumped out at me when I read the notebook — that the man is 56 years old. That's part of the factual context of the case. Many students are immature, but when the immature student is 56 years old, that affects the assessment of the evidence.

Let's not jump to assume he was suspended solely for writing about his sexual attraction to the teachers (or for speaking out about gun rights). We don't know the totality of the facts here, only that the man has engaged representation and gone public in a context where the school is not able to explain its action.

By the way, when I think of great writers and Oakland, I don't think of Quentin Tarantino, Vladimir Nabokov, or Stephen King, I think of Gertrude Stein, who famously remarked: "The trouble with Oakland is that when you get there, there isn't any there there." 

Anyway, I don't know what the there here is, and neither do you.

ADDED: I really didn't know where the there there was. Oakland University is in Michigan, not in Stein's no-there-there Oakland, which was the one that's always there there in your head, the one in California.