4 ½ Updates

This one is long, even by Curmie’s standards.  Buckle up.

The four updates Curmie wants to write about today all concern recent news.  We’ll get to them in a moment, but let’s start with the “half an update.”  Curmie wrote “Questions. Curmie’s Got Questions.” three days after the (alleged?) assassination attempt on then-ex-President Trump in Butler, PA, in July of 2024.  He expressed some doubts about the official version of events, asking a series of questions, most of which remain unanswered nearly two years later. 

There’s no question that there were shots fired, that Thomas Michael Crooks fired them, or that rally attendee Corey Comperatore was killed and two other onlookers were wounded.  That’s as far as Curmie would go then, and it’s as far as he’ll go now.  No scenario matches what we know: those events sure as hell look staged, but such a scenario would require active collusion from multiple members of both the FBI and the Secret Service, and that’s asking a bit much.  On the other hand, Trump’s injured ear sure did heal fast and without a scar, there’s no reasonable explanation for why he’d have abandoned his shoes, and this little B-movie excerpt certainly helped his campaign.  Oh, and substitute “incompetence” for “collusion” in the bit about the FBI and Secret Service a couple of sentences back.

More importantly, there really hasn’t been a lot of new information forthcoming, task force recommendations notwithstanding.  Curmie remains skeptical, but is well short of being a full-fledged conspiracy theorist.  What’s the update?  Well, it used to be that those who were most vocal in their insistence that it was all a fraudulent publicity stunt were almost exclusively anti-MAGAs.  Now, that seems to be changing.

Well, sort of.  Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson aren’t exactly the elected spokespeople for the MAGA movement.  To suggest, as one headline does, that “MAGA now thinks Trump’s assassination attempt was actually a hoax” is obviously misleading, and it should come as no surprise that the majority of articles making the claim are on left-leading sites.  Also, of course, it’s not so much that those folks who are changing their minds aren’t really doubting the authenticity of the events at Butler; they’ve just come to realize that Dear Leader doesn’t really care about them, and that his seemingly miraculous escape just might not have been specifically ordained by God Himself.

It’s half an update, in other words.

OK, on to the other stories, in decreasing order of the likelihood that you, Gentle Reader, know about this stuff.  We start, then, with the re-naming of the Kennedy Center.  Back in December, Curmie described it as “Dear Leader’s Latest Vanity Endeavor.”  As you are probably aware, U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper ruled that “the Kennedy Center Board’s decision to rename the Center, along with its decision to affix President Trump’s name to the building’s façade, violate Congress’s unequivocal mandate. As stated at the outset, Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”  As for the board’s vote to close the Center for two years, he writes, “The trustees might have assessed the propriety of closure in a number of prudent ways. This was not one.”  That’s a pretty fair rebuke.

In a follow-up order, Cooper gave the board two weeks to “remove all physical signage on the Kennedy Center building and grounds, including the front portico, that purports to rename the Kennedy Center after President Trump or any other individual besides President Kennedy.” 

Dear Leader’s response was depressingly predictable, displaying a level of unhinged petulance seldom seen in anyone over the age of three.  Standard operating procedure for the Trump administration is two-fold: 1). Go ahead with whatever unauthorized activity floats your boat at a particular moment in time because it’s likely to be irrevocable by the time the rest of the country knows about it (demolition of the East Wing, painting the reflecting pool so it no longer reflects, etc.) and 2). simply disobeying any judicial order they don’t like (e.g., the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case).  Oh, come to think of it, there’s a #3: whine about how abused you are that you’re expected to follow the rules. 

#1 becomes relevant in terms of the shut-down, as the people who’d be scheduling acts for the future have all been sacked, and the Center has been winding down since the announcement (by Trump, without board approval, by the way) in March.  #2 is likely; the board, all but the ex officio members of which are gutless sycophants, is likely to appeal the ruling.  And, of course, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum is already equivocating about whether he’ll actually enforce the order.  To be fair, the headline of the Time article linked here—“Trump’s Name Won’t Be Coming off the Kennedy Center Just Yet, Despite Court Order”—is misleading.  Burgum is quite possibly simply anticipating the possibility of an appeal and waiting to see if the order still holds.  Removing the name is at most a two-day operation, after all.

#3, of course, has already happened.  Dear Leader, bratty toddler that he is, hurled abuse at Cooper, and is seemingly washing his tiny hands of the Center.  If he can’t put his name on it, it isn’t important to him.  Well, duh.

We’ll see where this one goes.  One thing is certain: there’s more to come.

Next up: This one got at least a little publicity when it happened.  Last November, Curmie wrote about the case of Larry Bushart.  He’s the retired Tennessee cop who was charged with a felony for posting a meme in the aftermath of the shooting of Charlie Kirk.  Curmie granted that Bushart, a self-described “asshole,” posts a lot of memes, some of them not in the best of taste.  Still, it’s beyond absurd that anyone could believe that the meme constituted any kind of threat, let alone of “mass violence at a school.”  (The meme showed Donald Trump declaring that “we have to get over it” in response to a school shooting at Perry High School in Iowa.  Coincidentally, the local high school in Tennessee is Perry County High School.  Not the same place, and no threat even if it were.)

Curmie noted at the time that FIRE had gotten involved, and that they were assisting Bushart in a lawsuit against the county, the sheriff, and the sheriff’s investigator.  On May 20, FIRE announced an out of court settlement for $835,000.  Frankly, that seems a little low, given that Bushart spent 37 days in jail, lost his post-retirement job, and missed the birth of his grandchild, all over a meme the sheriff now admits he knew was about a different school.  But that’s a sizable enough chunk of change that perhaps, just perhaps, the next idiot cop might pause before so blatantly and stupidly violating someone’s 1st Amendment rights.  At the very least, prosecutors and judges might exercise a little judgment; it might be asking to much to expect small-town cops to do so.

Along similar lines is a more recent case involving the censorship of a composition the Watertown (WI) Wind Ensemble was to have played at their spring concert.  The brouhaha was over a piece dedicated to Marsha P. Johnson, a black trans activist who participated in the Stonewall uprising in 1969, and that was enough to have the pearl-clutchers of the school board forbid playing the piece.  When Curmie wrote about the situation on May 20, there was a concert (actually just that one short song) scheduled for that night at a local church, conducted by the composer, Omar Thomas.  You can see the video of that event here.  There are a lot of speeches, which you’re welcome to watch, of course, but you might like to know that Thomas is introduced shortly before the 58-minute mark, and the band starts at about 1:09:56.

The other part of the story was the involvement of the Minocqua Brewing Company in the person of owner/proprietor Kirk Bangstad.  He’s a controversial figure, to say the least (check out Curmie’s post for some details), and there was some concern that his invitation for the band to play at his establishment (in Madison, 40-ish miles from Watertown) might be longer on self-promotion than on bona fide support for the band.

Curmie wondered at the time, “Is it possible that this whole business is a scam, that there will never be a concert at the Minocqua Brewing Company, or that few if any of the musicians will be high school kids?  Could the tens of thousands of dollars raised for a still not finalized 501(c)3 find their way into Bangstad’s pocket, instead?”  Well… no, there was not a concert at the bar, or even outside in the parking lot, nor was there one Saturday the 23rd.  But there was a concert, the 501(c)3 now does exist, and a fair amount of money seems to have been raised.  Allow Curmie to explain.

We start with the exchanges between Bangstad and band booster club president Jay Sandvick.  NB: these are Bangstad’s recollections, paraphrased.  Are they still accurate?  At least largely, one suspects.  Anyway, there seems to have been an attempt in Watertown to poison the well, whether this resulted from legitimate fears, distrust of Bangstad, or garden variety cowardice.  Interestingly, Sandvick seemed convinced that the antagonism was coming from progressives rather than MAGAs.  If he was right, and Curmie is fully prepared to believe that he was, it just shows that there are idiots at every spot on the political spectrum.

A lot of musicians dropped out, and cancellation of the event seemed very likely.  Luckily (as it happens), the departures were framed as safety issues regarding the parking lot.  That problem was solved by moving the time and place: from Saturday in the bar’s parking lot to the following Thursday at Madison’s Barrymore Theater.  There’s video of that event here.  Speeches start at about the 4:05 mark; the band starts playing at about 20:12.  Be warned: the sound quality of the recording isn’t the best, and there’s some background conversation.

There are two other issues: First off, how many student musicians were there?  Curmie is old enough that anyone younger than 35 looks like a teenager, and even he suspects that the number of actual high-schoolers playing at either event could probably be counted on one hand.  Does that matter?  Well, sort of.  One would have hoped that more of the people directly affected by the censorial machinations of the school board would have participated, but Curmie isn’t going to assign blame, individually or collectively. 

The larger issue is whether the fund-raising event worked.  It did.  As noted in Curmie’s earlier piece, it would be hard to pull off any chicanery in an event so publicly accessible.  Bangstad presented an over-sized check for $82,000; the real check will apparently be for $85,188.12.  A cynic might argue that Bangstad actually collected more than that; that’s possible, one supposes, but Curmie doubts it.  Curmie does take issue with the “check number,” 8647.  First off, that’s just a little too cute.  More importantly, it takes away from the purpose of the event: this isn’t about national politics; it’s about demanding constitutional enforcement at the local level.  These cases continue: it was stupid for an Alaska high school to shut down a performance of “Bohemian Rhapsody” 15 years ago; it’s stupid to shut down a performance of “A Mother of a Revolution” today.  The most important battles are often the most seemingly insignificant ones.  Some hills are worth dying on… metaphorically only, please.

And so we move on to the story that you, Gentle Reader, are least likely to have heard about.  It may, in its own way, be more troubling than any of the others.  A little short of four years ago, Curmie wrote a post titled “Changing Voter Eligibility: Four Really Stupid Ideas.”  Curmie described one of them this way: “whereas this is the worst idea in a contest of plenty horrible ideas, it’s also the only one with a chance of becoming law.”  You see where this is going, don’t you, Gentle Reader?

Back then, the small town of Seaford, Delaware (population about 8,000) changed its charter to allow businesses to vote in local elections.  Quoth the idiot mayor, David Genshaw, “These are folks that have fully invested in their community with the money, with their time, with their sweat. We want them to have a voice if they choose to take it.”  Needless to say, not only is the policy stupid on its face, but Genshaw’s argument is barely coherent.  That doesn’t mean that other towns aren’t going to join in the stupidity, or that courts aren’t going to suck up to where the economic and therefore political power is (Citizens United, anyone?).

One of the other Delaware burgs to join in the fun is Fenwick Island, located about an hour ESE of Seaford.  They, too, decided to let companies vote (apparently they had done so for a long time).  Their mayor,  Natalie Magdeburger, makes Genshaw look positively Solomonic by comparison.  She actually argues that the majority of properties in her town are owned by family or marital trusts, and that therefore “our voting system is just, fair and gives everyone a voice. As a town, we believe that a property owner who pays taxes and is subject to our ordinances should have a say in who represents them on our Town Council.”  By this reasoning, Curmie could have voted in New Hampshire between inheriting his father’s house there in 1999 and selling the property in 2022, despite not having lived there since 1994.  Of course, Curmie is actually a human (and not an obscenely rich one), so he probably couldn’t get away with that nonsense. 

Significantly, if voting franchise is even slightly linked to property ownership, then we’re one step closer to oligarchy, with the next logical step being the disenfranchisement of apartment-dwellers and other renters.  And if your name isn’t on the deed—if, for example, the house is in your spouse’s name, or you’re a college kid living at home—then too bad, so sad.  No, Curmie isn’t predicting this, but despite his comment from 2022, he didn’t think the whole corporations-can-vote scam would stand up to a legal challenge.  But it just did.

The ACLU sued to ensure that voters should necessarily be of the flesh-and-blood variety.  They lost, because Judge Craig Karsnitz would lose a battle of wits with an anvil.  He argues that granting franchise to non-human entities doesn’t dilute the political power of actual residents.  That’s not just counter-intuitive; it’s insane.  The only reason to support the preposterous idea that corporations, LLCs, and trusts ought to have voting rights is precisely to reduce the suasion of actual residents. 

Politics is a zero-sum game in this regard: if we allow X to vote, then the power of not-X is concomitantly reduced.  We can disagree about who should have franchise—whether the voting age should be adjusted, or whether legal immigrants should be allowed to vote in certain types of elections, for example.  And if the mayors of tiny towns in Delaware and the idiots who elected them want to cede power to non-human moneyed interests, presumably with the hope of attracting even more of such entities to a state that already has over twice as many corporations as registered (human) voters, then we can at least find our way to something that looks like a rationale. 

These people are stupid, but they’re not as stupid as the judge who thinks there will be no likelihood of non-human “voters” overturning the will of actual human residents.  Indeed, the only people who cannot vote on behalf of a trust or a corporation or whatever in which they have an interest are those who actually live there, as that, you see, would give them more than one vote.  Curmie would also like to see a corporation show up at a polling place.  Tailgate East12 pretty much nails it: “Corporations cannot vote. A human has to place that vote on behalf of said corporations essential[ly] giving a Delaware voter more than [one] vote or giving an out of state owner of a corporation an illegal vote or giving a foreign owner of a corporation a vote which he or she is not entitled to.”  A group called Demand Justice argues, quite reasonably, that “Corporations aren't people. They don’t have kids in local schools, they don’t drink the water, they can’t be jailed for crimes, and they shouldn’t get a vote.”

It’s also worth noting, as pointed out by Jacob Owens on spotlightdelaware.org,  “there are no limits on the number of artificial non-human entities eligible to vote based on their ownership interest in any single property parcel nor is there a minimum share of a property required to register. That means if several LLCs jointly own a beach home in Fenwick Island, all of the owners can register to vote, regardless of how little a stake.”  Curmie will trust you to understand the implications, Gentle Reader. 

The good news, such as it is, is that a couple of Delaware legislators intend to introduce legislation that would end this inane practice.  Curmie wishes them luck.

So, the count for the 4 1/2 updates: three positive, at least in the short term, one negative, one-half pretty much neutral.

On Jonas Hole's Salutatory Address

Jonas Hole in his Junior ROTC uniform

Three of Curmie’s last four blog posts touched on issues related to the trans community—what can be taught in university classrooms, the fact that a trans actor was cast in a major motion picture, and that a piece of instrumental music honors a trans activist from decades ago.  The fourth essay was about graduation ceremonies.  And now… <drum roll>… both topics at once.  Curmie promises he’ll find a different kind of topic soon.

Actually, the graduation speech by Jonas Hole, the salutatorian at D’Iberville High School in Biloxi, isn’t the whole story, although it’s how Curmie found out about the case.  Jonas, who identifies as transmasculine, was introduced by the school’s principal, Cheryl Broadus.  Broadus used Jonas’s deadname and described him as an “outstanding young lady.”  Unsurprisingly, Broadus has not responded to multiple requests for comment. 

What is particularly disturbing here is that this is obviously an attempt, not merely to be a bigoted asshole, but to strut about it.  It would certainly be easy enough to avoid gendered descriptions: “Our next speaker is the class salutatorian, who has accomplished a great deal both in the classroom and elsewhere.  Our records show the name as Makayla Hole, but many of you will no doubt recognize this outstanding young scholar as Jonas Hole.” 

See how easy that was?  It notes the reality that students—and that who this event ought to be all about, after all—will know this person as Jonas, without either endorsing or condemning the name change.  Reality is a thing, after all.  Curmie would have been more affirmative, but no one asked him, and it’s only fair to admit that Broadus has to deal with what might reasonably be assumed to be a less than entirely liberal community, and alienating those folks might be contra-indicated.  

She (Curmie uses the feminine pronoun because that’s how she presents herself; he hasn’t checked her genitalia) didn’t have to join with the neanderthals, however, and in Curmie’s mind that makes her unfit for her position, which above all else ought to be to prioritize respect for her students.

The speech itself was recorded by a mom in the audience who posted it as a reel on Facebook.  It’s not exactly the highest fidelity in history, and there’s more than a little background noise, but it’s what we’ve got, and it isn’t horrible.  Jonas differs from the Kinks’ Lola, who walks like a woman and talks like a man.  Jonas talks like a woman; whether he walks like a man isn’t clear from the video, but he certainly looks like one (see the photo above).

The speech is a little rushed.  Whether this is a function of nerves (reasonable enough under the circumstances) or perhaps a time limit isn’t clear.  What is absolutely evident, however, is that there’s actual content here.  Enjoy it while you can, Gentle Reader, as election season is heating up, and we’re not likely to hear much of anything in our news feeds but slogans and misrepresentations for the next few months.

The video doesn’t show the very opening of the speech, but according to the article in Mississippi Today linked above he “first introduced himself with his former name, then added, ‘a lot of you know me as Jonas.’”  Nice little knife twist, that.  The speech starts with the recollection of “trying to blend in” and “wanting people to like me” as a freshman. Curmie doesn’t remember a lot about that time in his life, but he does remember that.  “Whether you know it or not, you probably did, too,” says Hole.  Yep.  And it didn’t work for Curmie, either.  (Different circumstances; same phenomenon.)

After a couple of shoutouts, we get to the real stuff:

Throughout high school, I eventually gathered the courage to advocate self-expression for myself and others.  Despite my own self-acceptance, others judged me without understanding me.  I became my labels, and it felt as if my achievements, hardships, personality, all became irrelevant for the sole fact that I present myself differently. 

However, I hold no grudge against those who were so quick to criticize me….  As I’ve matured to accept myself for who I am, I want to encourage all of you to do the same. Express yourself as individuals and resist the temptation to just be a follower. We as a community can be so much stronger by living our lives truthfully and without fear of what someone else may or may not think.  

(Note: the quote in The Advocate renders that last word as “be.”  It’s unclear in the recording; both words work in context.)

He even slipped in a Bible verse, Romans 15:7 (NIL) “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”  Touché, kid!

OK, yeah, the whole thing was a little self-centered, and the homily wasn’t actually the most original advice Curmie has ever heard.  That said, the speech was polite and gracious, and Hole is in an ideal position to connect his own lived history with wider issues.  It’s not the “mic drop” that some LGBTQ+ advocates claim it is, but it’s honest and articulate: not bad for a three-and-a-half-minute speech by a teenager.

Unfortunately, misgendering Jonas at graduation appears to be the tip of the iceberg.  He was not only deadnamed in a post on the school’s Facebook page, but there is at least speculation that his image was digitally altered to make him appear more feminine.  The incipient mustache on Jonas’s upper lip is certainly more evident in the photo you see at the top of the page than in the school’s photo, but that wasn’t necessarily intentional.  And Curmie does admit to being a little confused by the suggestion that Jonas was “outed” by that post—surely virtually everyone knew the story. 

Erasure, of course, is a different thing.  Curmie doesn’t understand the phenomenon as viscerally as he would if he himself were trans, but he has seen the expression on the faces of trans friends and family who were deadnamed by people who knew better. 

Perhaps even more significantly, a half dozen students at the school found out their pictures had been excised from the yearbook only when the books were distributed.  Is that “dehumanizing,” as Jensen Luke Matar, the director of the statewide Transgender Resources, Advocacy, Networking and Services (TRANS) Program, would have it?  Perhaps not, but cruelty and stupidity are in a death struggle to be the defining characteristic of that little ploy.  In a just universe, whoever made that decision would be pilloried (literally).

The transition from adolescence to post-adolescence isn’t easy for anyone, let alone someone whose gender identity isn’t what some people think is “normal.”  Throw in the end of high school, where you got to see your friends every day, and things get tougher still.  Now you’re a lot more on your own than you’ve ever been.  That’s great in some ways, but it’s also damned scary.  And now some so-called educator wants to deny your reality.  Bloody fucking hell.

The Dilemma of Graduation Speeches

 

It’s graduation season.  Curmie’s Facebook page has been awash for a fortnight or more with celebratory posts from friends who attended festivities for their sons and daughters, grandkids,  or students.    (A lot of  Curmie’s former students are teachers now.) All this got Curmie thinking about the exercises themselves, especially the speeches.  These have provided source material for Curmie several times, whether they were delivered by graduating seniors (here, here, and here) or guest speakers.  This year, though, it’s more about the speeches that didn’t happen.  Curmie wrote about that phenomenon before, too.

This time, though, we’re not talking about a single disinvitation, but several.  An article by FIRE’s Sheridan Macy and Charlotte Arneson highlights several incidents.  Curmie had mentioned the situation at Utah Valley in passing a couple of weeks ago, but Macy and Arneson added Rutgers, Georgetown Law, Drexel’s College of Computing and Informatics, NYU, South Carolina State, Southern California, MIT, George Washington, CUNY Law, and Stanford.  (Note: a couple of these were from previous years.)  Roughly half of the attempts to deny a podium are ultimately successful.  That’s kinda scary.

Predictably, FIRE isn’t happy about these variations on the theme—disinvitations, speakers “voluntarily” withdrawing, denial of student speeches, etc.  On the one hand, it’s difficult to argue with FIRE’s contemplation of 1st Amendment implications, or indeed with their conclusion that “in making these cowardly decisions to revoke invitations or limit student speech, universities often only succeed in creating new or additional controversy while eroding already crumbling student and faculty trust in university administrations to protect speech.”

This is especially true at, say, Utah Valley, where prospective speaker Sharon McMahon, despite pronouncing herself “gutted” by the murder of Charlie Kirk, also provided some context, quoting some of Kirk’s more bigoted proclamations, and writing “These aren’t sound bites taken out of context. Millions of people feel they were harmed, and the murder that was horrific and should never have happened does not magically erase what was said or done.”  That was enough, of course, for Republican pols like Rep. Burgess Owens to be sore offended and to try throwing his weight around.  And the UVU administration caved.  Of course.

More understandable but still problematic is the situation at South Carolina State, an HBCU that invited an avowed opponent of DEI initiatives, GOP Lieutenant Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) Pamela Evette.  There are a couple of issues here.  First, why would Evette be invited to begin with?  She certainly seems a strange choice for an HBCU.  Was there some sort of political positioning going on?  To show ideological diversity?  Was the university under some sort of threat, whether stated or implied?  Was the invitation really from SCSU, or did Evette sort of invite herself and expect the university to go along?

Second, it appears that there wasn’t even a public announcement that Evette was to be the speaker before a student-generated petition gathered some 20,000 signatures (that’s over six times as many folks as there are students at SCSU!), and President Alexander Conyers backed away from the invitation, citing security concerns, just as had appeared as the official reason for disinviting McMahon at Utah Valley.  

Is that the real reason?  Possibly, but Curmie isn’t betting the ranch, and FIRE has even less faith than Curmie on this one.  It certainly seems that “security concerns” are the contemporary version of “potential for disruption,” a phrase that has been used as an excuse for 1st Amendment violations for years, especially but not exclusively at the high school level.  More importantly, Evette isn’t buying the rationale, either, and is threatening to withhold some $35 million in state funding to the university.  FAFO on one side; self-righteous pettiness on the other.  Jolly.

OK, so one university buckled to pressure from the right, and another one buckled to pressure from the left.  We’ve also seen prospective speakers cancelled or otherwise censored because they unreservedly support Israel (Georgetown Law), and others because they condemn Israel (NYU, Southern Cal, MIT).  FIRE is right about the need for free speech.

Except.

Inviting someone to speak at graduation is different than simply bringing them to campus for a speech.  In every other case, students can simply not attend (unless the handful who may be required to do so as a course requirement).  Missing one’s own graduation is a different matter.  And if there’s one thing you can take to the bank, Gentle Reader, it’s that politicians are incapable of doing what is expected of ethical adults, and a lot of other folks are, too.  

It is perfectly fine if a graduation speaker is controversial, but the speech shouldn’t be.  Congratulate the grads, tell a couple of jokes, give some advice about negotiating the steps ahead, and say something a little inspirational without talking about politics or religion or the other topics you avoid at Thanksgiving dinner because of your weird Uncle Howard.  Then shut up and sit down.  Curmie is not a fan of the death penalty, but he’s willing to make an exception for graduation speakers who go more than 15 minutes (unless there is a lot of applause or laughter that slow things down): no one is there to listen to you, dude.  (“Dude” in the previous sentence is, of course, non-gender-specific.)

Curmie stopped going to graduations at his former employer, opting instead to use that three hours or so to reduce some of the pressure of Grading Hell, after one particularly outrageous speech given by some fairly high-ranking state official (comptroller, maybe?).  Not only did she address the assembled graduates as students of our arch rival on three occasions (yes, really!), she pretty much concentrated on why everyone in the room should vote for Republicans.  These people, pols of whatever stripes, can’t help themselves.  You can tell them not to alienate half their audience.  They nod agreement, then do it, anyway. 

If I’ve invested four (or more) years of my life and accumulated a few tens of thousands of dollars in debt to get a degree, I don’t want to have my celebration marred by someone spouting political opinions with which I disagree.  Even if, as was the case when Harrison Butker spoke at Benedictine College two years ago, it’s a reasonable assumption that a significant majority of the students and their families will agree with the speaker, there’s a difference between “significant majority” and “unanimity.”  Why alienate anyone at their own graduation ceremony?

I don’t want to listen to the political rhetoric of people I agree with, either—not at graduation.  I might think that person over there is racist, or homophobic, or anti-Semitic, or too Woke to be palatable, or whatever, but give them a bit of grace on their special day, at least.  One of the playwrights Curmie wrote about in his dissertation said it beautifully when I interviewed him: “we are more alike than unalike.”  We’re all facing the future together; maybe we should act like it.

Of course, especially at the post-secondary level, if the school has done what they should have done, i.e., developing skills of critical thinking, the assembled graduates will be fully capable of recognizing the flawed logic, the unsupported assertions, and the oh-so-casual omissions.  You’re not going to recruit anyone to your side, and the people who already agree with you just want you to shut up so they can go celebrate with their families.  There are plenty of opportunities to express your political opinions.  Don’t misuse a forum just because you can.

One last thing: apparently a couple of universities have instituted a policy whereby the speakers will be on stage, but their speeches will be pre-recorded and played on screens behind them.  This, of course, makes no sense whatsoever; all it does is advertise the school’s distrust of the person they hired to give the address, and prevent any real interaction between the speaker and the audience.  There’s no need for speakers to appear in person if their comments aren’t going to be live and responsive to the reception of the students (in particular).  Censorship and money-wasting: what a happy combination!

Curmie confesses that he can’t remember who spoke at his own graduation, and the only keynote about which he has literally any positive memories was delivered by a faculty colleague 30-something years ago.  Beyond that, nothing has happened in the however many (25? 30?) graduations Curmie has attended would make him mourn the demise of the keynote address altogether.  But if we’re going to have one, and a lot of people think they’re a sine qua non, then we need to avoid the following if at all possible a). the powers-that-be invite a completely inappropriate speaker (all politicians are inappropriate), b). the speaker, whoever that may be, decides that being divisive is a good idea, and c). the protesters fail to grow up.  In other words, this is an insoluble problem.  Alas.

"A Mother of a Revolution," the Streisand Effect, and Good Trouble

Two nights ago there was an end-of-the-school-year band concert by students at Watertown High School in Wisconsin.  That’s hardly headline-making news, of course.  Curmie regrets that he can’t even tell you, Gentle Reader, what selections were played.  That’s because the important part of the story, the part that makes people across the country (including Curmie) pay attention, is what was not played: Omar Thomas’s “A Mother of a Revolution.”

That composition, you see, was dedicated to Marsha P. Johnson, a black trans activist who participated in the Stonewall uprising in 1969.  That is apparently enough for the district’s clown car board of education to forbid the piece from being performed.  They describe Stonewall as “a six-day riot which included the beating of police officers and attempting to burn down a building with human beings trapped inside.”  They leave out the whole “finally had enough of police brutality” part.  Oh, and the “was a seminal event in giving agency to the LGBT community” part, too.  We might color Curmie unsurprised.  

Using the board’s logic, of course, the American Revolution could be characterized as an armed insurrection against the lawfully constituted authority of His Majesty’s government, resulting in the deaths of thousands of loyal British soldiers.  Equally importantly, we know that Johnson was an “agitator” in Stonewall, but it’s unclear exactly what that means.  Moreover, Curmie would suggest that she was a significant figure before and especially after, as well as during, Stonewall.

A couple other factors would seem to be important.  First off, “A Mother of a Revolution” is an instrumental piece.  You can hear it here, performed by the University of North Texas Wind Symphony, if you’re interested.  Whether you like the tune or not, there’s nothing to suggest that there’s anything political in the music per se.  It’s not like they brought in the choir to sing the Internationale or even “Do You Hear the People Sing.” We’re going to get upset by whose memory is being invoked?  Seriously?

More problematically, this whole commedia is very much the product of the process, which is designed primarily as an exercise in prior restraint.  You can do something “controversial,” but only if you get prior approval from parents.  The band director sent out the appropriate forms last fall, got the necessary signatures, and started rehearsals in October.  But here’s the bind: if you don’t send out the notifications, then you’re in violation of the stupid rules.  If you do, then you’re admitting that someone might object, and that honesty will come back to bite you in the ass more often than not.  It’s also worth noting that the board had also signed off on using the piece… until, of course, they didn’t, only a few days before the concert.

As usual in such cases, there were “parental complaints” from unnamed sources.  Band members’ parents had already given consent, so this was some other kids’ parents.  All this presumes that the board is even telling the truth, but a Watertown parent Katie Vanderlinden said at Monday’s board meeting that she was told by the superintendent that “there were zero parental complaints.”  Anyway, the board does what such bodies always do: they capitulated. 

The correct response, of course, would have been to tell those folks who didn’t want to hear the piece not to come.  Usually, a board’s failure to do so is the product of cowardice.  There may have been some of that here, too (there’s no question that they’re avoiding the subject now), but the problem seems to be more that the majority of board members seem to have been elected on a platform of “ending indoctrination in radical curriculum.”  Those, by the way, are the words of an attendee at Monday’s board meeting, not of a board member per se.  The argument is that playing the song encourages violence.  The actual reason Johnson is celebrated, of course, is her demand for acceptance and inclusion, but… whatever.

There’s always a rationale for censorship, and it’s always bullshit.  Whether the board acted out of cowardice, stupidity, or partisanship doesn’t matter.  They earned their nationwide humiliation.

But the story gets better.  News spread to Madison, a little under an hour away, where Kirk Bangstad, the owner of the Minocqua Brewing Company, offered to host the group in his beer garden (the event was later moved outside to the parking lot to accommodate more people) and charge admission, with proceeds to go to the band.  There’s some legalistic stuff, but basically it works out like this.  The band director was not involved in the offer or the planning, so one hopes (at least) that he will suffer no repercussions.  Not all members of the Watertown Wind Symphony will participate, and those who do will do so as individual volunteers.  Those who choose not to play for whatever reason will be replaced by alumni, college kids, guest artists, whoever.  We’ve subsequently been assured that “as of last Saturday, there were enough students who wanted to do it and enough people who could actually play who had volunteered to play it.”

Of course, the school board then insisted that no school-owned instruments could be used for an unsanctioned event.  Bangstad and the leadership of the Band Boosters found a way around that, too, as “Band directors and music stores from around the Midwest immediately sprang to action and loaned the band the instruments they needed to play this concert.”  Aaaaand they’re setting up a 501(c)3 that will be completely separate from the school per se, so the board gets no say in how their money is spent.  Curmie doesn’t have up-to-date figures on how much money has been raised, but as of the middle of Saturday afternoon, it was almost $66,000.  Musical instruments are expensive, but that kind of money would make a good start.

Bangstad says he wanted to create the Streisand Effect, and he did.  The song will now be played twice, as there will also be a performance tonight at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in Watertown.  (EDIT: The video of the performance at the church is available here.) The conductor will be the composer, Omar Thomas, who is apparently flying in from Austin, Texas, for the event.  The church’s website lists the rules for attendees (no recording, no posters, that kind of thing) and notes that,

The purpose of this event is to experience a piece of music that has been prepared by and for people who are rooted in our Watertown community. The performers do not desire to be the center of attention, and we are not gathering for a rally or protest. Instead, the musicians’ hope is for an audience to focus on the work they put into A Mother of a Revolution! and for the music to tell its own story.

It’s unclear—to Curmie, at least—whether the percentage of high schoolers playing this evening will be higher than on Saturday.  It’s certainly reasonable that a parent might think that a local church might be a more appropriate venue than a bar 40 miles away for their teenager to play.  Or they might support both or neither.

Traffic has been heavy on the YouTube pages of a host of universities and youth orchestras that have played the piece.  As Curmie writes this, the first comment we come to on the University of Georgia’s Wind Ensemble’s version sort of says it all: “Raise your hand if you're here because you won't be told what not to listen to.” Well said, acdeeiprrt!  Curmie suspects Thomas’s composition been heard by more people in the last few days than ever before.  Good.

It’s worth noting that Bangstad is a controversial figure to say the least.  He’s a rather virulent anti-MAGA, and apparently something of a hothead.  Just in the last few weeks, he’s pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, been interrogated by the FBI and Secret Service for comments about President Trump, and declared his candidacy for governor.  Busy lad!

There have also been allegations that he used funds from a PAC he established to pay his personal expenses.  There’s sufficient smoke, in other words, to suspect there’s a fire around there somewhere.  Is it possible that this whole business is a scam, that there will never be a concert at the Minocqua Brewing Company, or that few if any of the musicians will be high school kids?  Could the tens of thousands of dollars raised for a still not finalized 501(c)3 find their way into Bangstad’s pocket, instead?  Is this the left’s small-scale response to the Trump phone scam, which netted Dear Leader and his family something in the neighborhood of $59 million for a product that may never be made?

Curmie supposes so, but it seems improbable here: not because Bangstad is above reproach, but for two independent other reasons.  First, it’s difficult to imagine that a local church would make promises they can’t keep.  Second, everything is too public.  If there’s no performance in Madison in Saturday, we’ll know.  If none of the musicians are high schoolers, we’ll know.  If the Band Boosters don’t get access to that money, we’ll know… and we’ll know whom to blame. Kirk Bangstad may be all the horrible things his detractors say about him, but he’s not stupid.  Neither are the leaders of the booster group, who’ll be sure that they’re getting all the money they should.

Ultimately, we’ll know something tonight, more on Saturday, and more still a few days after that.  Bangstad said recently that the story here is that “Thousands of people have gotten together to say ‘We won’t stand for censorship.  We won’t stand for bigotry.  And we’re gonna get into some good trouble.”  That part is true, whether Bangstad is on the up and up or not.

Curmie was not in band in high school, but Beloved Spouse was.  And we’re both fans of free expression.  We sent in a few bucks.  Here’s hoping it ends up where we intended.

BTW, Gentle Reader, if you’d like to make a donation, go here and click on “get tickets.”  The event is sold out, but there’s a “donate to the band” option.

The Casting of "The Odyssey" and Believing Rumors

 

Curmie has written numerous times about variations on the theme of casting decisions for plays, movies, and television series.  In June of 2017, he discussed the controversy surrounding the Public Theater’s production of Julius Caesar, in which the title character bore more than passing resemblance to Donald Trump.  In 2021, it was the brouhaha at the University of Michigan when a Distinguished Professor of Music showed the Laurence Olivier version of Othello in class.  The following spring, Curmie argued that no, you don’t have to be disabled to play Richard III.  In February of ’23, he suggested that obeying the terms of the rights contract shouldn’t lead to the cancelation of a production of Waiting for Godot.

In April of 2023, Curmie wrote about the casting of black-presenting actress Adele James as Cleopatra in what Netflix would have had us believe was a documentary.  And in January of 2025, the topic was the entirely white-presenting chorus (some of the leads were BIPOC) for a production of the musical Elf in Sacramento.  Oh, and there was a lengthy comment on a post on Ethics Alarms in 2021 about the casting of black actress Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn; that one was designated a Comment of the Day.

Anyway, here we go again.  Curmie thought that if he wrote about Christopher Nolan’s upcoming film version of The Odyssey, he’d concentrate on Nolan’s fondness for the controversial (?) feminist (?) translation of Emily Wilson, which Curmie definitely wants to read.  But he’s going to write instead about the three (Count ‘em!  Three!) casting decisions that have raised the ire of conservative commentators.  Well, there are three that Curmie knows about; there may be others.  The first and third, chronologically in terms of the brouhaha, are pretty similar and frankly rather boring: OMG, Nolan cast a black woman (Lupita Nyong’o) as Helen of Troy (and her sister Clytemnestra) and a black man (rapper Travis Scott) as a bardic narrator figure!  They should look like the originals, you see.  <Sigh.>

Ahem.  

First off, there almost certainly were no real-life originals.  Were there Bronze Age places called Troy and Greece?  Yes.  Was there a war between the Greeks and Trojans, fought at least partially at Troy?  Perhaps.  Were there important (royal) people named Helen, Odysseus, Agamemnon, etc.?  Unlikely, but possible.  Are the events of The Odyssey (Circe, Scylla and Charybdis, sirens…) even plausible?  Uh, no.  Homer, whoever he, she, or they may have been, either made that stuff up or perhaps inherited some of it from other writers not lucky enough to have had their works preserved.  Oh, and that line the right-wing critics like to quote about Helen being “the face that launched a thousand ships”?  That wasn’t Homer; that was Christopher Marlowe, over two millennia later.  Curmie’s a theatre historian; he knows this stuff.

Secondly, even assuming that there were real-life historical figures who served as the basis for Homer’s epic… uh… wouldn’t they be and look… uh… Greek?  As far as Curmie can tell, there is not a single Greek cast member, or indeed with any Greek forebears.  Interesting, that.  It may be a bit strong to use the term “racist” to describe those who see no problem with casting Matt Damon or Anne Hathaway but get righteously indignant over Lupita Nyong’o or Zendaya, but not by much.  People of Greek heritage who claim cultural appropriation have more of a point than those who want white actors only.

Is it a bit too cute for Nolan to justify casting Scott by suggesting that rappers are the closest thing we have today to the reception of ancient texts via bardic oral tradition?  Sure.  But it’s not a totally crazy idea, and Curmie, being of the wrong generation and race to fully appreciate Scott’s work, isn’t going to criticize that casting without as much as seeing the film.

But all of this leaves the source of peak indignation from the usual suspects, namely the casting of Elliot (formerly Ellen) Page.  There were rumors that Page, at a slender 5’1”, was to play Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors.  The response of Newsmax’s Rob Finnerty was predictably assholic: “You might even remember Brad Pitt played Achilles in a movie 20 years ago, meaning we go from Brad Pitt to a girl who dresses as a guy who’s five-foot-one, 118 pounds. That’s the person who’s going to be playing the greatest warrior in history, because to the left, that is normal. That’s okay.”  A little later, he proclaims that Helen was white.  Nothing to see here; move along.

Others, like the insufferable Elon Musk, also piled on.  The problem, though, is that whereas there’s no legitimate reason to object to Nyong’o’s casting, Page as Achilles is indeed a bit of a stretch, to say the least.  True, Achilles appears as a ghost (you will recall, Gentle Reader that he was killed by Paris in The Iliad), and it might be possible to film only close-ups, or in full armor, or with distortions, or whatever.  But Elliot Page would do well to lift a Bronze Age sword, let alone wield one well enough to defeat Hector one-on-one.

But here, Gentle Reader, is where Curmie urges you to read his introduction to this topic carefully: “there were rumors” that Page would play Achilles.  As of this writing, the imdb page for the film lists Page as a cast member, but doesn’t specify a role.  There has been no official announcement, but it is now reported that that Page is expected to play Elpenor, the youngest member of Odysseus’s crew, who gets drunk and falls off a roof to his death.  He’s the first ghost Odysseus encounters in the Underworld (Achilles appears later), and causes some angst because Odysseus had left him unburied.  Elpenor, like Achilles, is a relatively minor character in The Odyssey; either or both could end up as little more than a cameo… or could be expanded into something more.  We shall see.

When Curmie first read about this controversy, the site he was reading proclaimed that Page would play Achilles.  Even Finnerty introduced his screed by noting that Page reportedly would be in that role.  But human nature being what it is, a rumor became a report, and the report became a “fact.” 

Were he of a cynical or snarky disposition (perish the thought!), Curmie might suggest that Christopher Nolan is not an idiot.  Announce that Elliot Page is in the cast.  Don’t announce who’s playing Achilles (if indeed the character will actually appear).  Maybe even get a minion to accidentally-on-purpose mention that Page was under consideration (leaving out the “for maybe five seconds” part).  Result: well, the right-wing critics look like folks who believe articles in The Onion.  More importantly, there is a mountain of free publicity: we’re still two months away from the release date, and “The Odyssey” is getting a lot more headlines than anything that’s actually in theaters now.  Perhaps, just perhaps, Team Nolan dangled a particularly juicy fake story out there… and Finneran, Musk, et al., rose to the bait.

Curmie suppresses a smirk.  Oh, OK, no, he doesn’t.

The Head of a University System Should Not Be a Knuckle-Dragging Bigot

Chancellor Brandon Creighton

Curmie started a piece a couple of weeks ago about the North Carolina community college whose administration demanded changes to the set for a production of Euripides’ Bacchae only hours before the show was to open.   He thought about perhaps appending some commentary on Utah Valley University’s withdrawal of the offer to best-selling author Sharon McMahon to deliver the commencement address because, although she described herself as “gutted” by the assassination of Charlie Kirk on that campus, she said she understood why some people weren’t grieving as loudly as the some other folks wanted.  She had the audacity to quote directly Kirk’s reprehensible statements about gays, Muslims, and blacks.  That, in the world of fawning obeisance to Dear Leader and his minions, is apparently inexcusable.

Anyway, Curmie didn’t get very far with that essay that night, but he did get a start: “Sometimes Curmie thinks there are tests of intelligence, integrity, and courage for people who want to be college presidents.  You have to fail at least two to get the gig.”  Curmie expresses all due disrespect for the stupidity, over-reaching, and cowardice of Jim Morton at Cape Fear Community College and Astrid Tuminez at Utah Valley (to be fair to the latter, the rabid responses of those who regarded a smug asshole like Kirk as akin to the Second Coming might indeed have suggested the possibility of legitimate security concerns).  But the easy winner of the Censorial Asshat Tournament (post-A&M edition) goes to Texas Tech (TTU) Chancellor Brandon Creighton, whose antics Curmie read about when a friend posted a story from the Erin in the Morning page to her Facebook page, describing a litany of restrictions on, well, teaching and learning at all TTU affiliated campuses.

A little background:

There are, in fact, three different state university systems in Texas (Curmie has no idea why): the University of Texas (UT), Texas A&M (TAMU), and Texas Tech.  Curmie’s former school was independent of control from Austin, College Station, or Lubbock until a couple of years ago (when Curmie was already retired from full-time teaching), but has now been absorbed into the UT network.  UT is not without its censorial impulses (see here and here, for instance), but so far, at least, it’s the least problematic of the three systems in terms of restricting curriculum.  That’s relatively speaking good news for Curmie’s former colleagues (it could be worse!), but Curmie waits with some trepidation for the other shoe to drop.

Even apart from enacting laws any reasonable person would call 1st Amendment violations, the governor and state legislature pull all the strings.  The governor, the despicable Greg Abbott, appoints the Regents, who appoint the Chancellor and university Presidents.  Back in the Dark Ages when Curmie was a lad, such appointments were based on who could best serve the interests of the school, its people (faculty, staff, students, and alumni), and the state. 

Curmie has mentioned a few times that his father was a President in the State University of New York system.  The chair of the College Council (the equivalent of the Regents) for several of his years in office, was appointed by a Republican governor; he was the chair of the Democratic Party in an adjoining county.  Back then, both the governor and the council chair cared more about education than about pushing a political agenda (or stifling someone else’s) in the state colleges.  Curmie can’t speak for other states, but in the two he’s most familiar with, Kansas and Texas, such an attitude would now be regarded by every politician in sight as hopelessly naïve, even quaint.

Even a decade or so ago, although prospective Regents in Texas had to be active Republicans, at least some attention was paid to the ways they might benefit the institution.  Now, the only requirement is stolid sycophancy.  And it probably goes without saying that Creighton, like his compatriots at Texas A&M, has no damned business heading any educational institution, let alone a system of colleges and universities.  He has no relevant experience: he’s a lawyer and former hard-right state legislator.  He neither knows nor cares anything about education, except as a tool for propaganda. 

One more point that sort of makes this personal.  As you probably know, Gentle Reader, Curmie came out of retirement to teach two sections of Theatre History as a sabbatical replacement in the fall of 2024.  It was an intriguing return to the classroom.  Far too many students were unwilling or unable to do the level of work expected in an upper-division course, but, as Curmie noted at the end of that semester: 

...it’s extremely important to note that my best students were not only more numerous than average, but they were really outstanding.  They’d not only done the reading; they’d thought about it.  They asked pertinent questions and made intriguing comments, often analogizing (appropriately!) to other plays, novels, films, or historical events.  Most of all, and this was especially true of a couple of them, they were intellectually curious.  They’d read things that hadn’t been assigned, and then they’d ask me questions.

After a couple of decades in this business, one learns to identify students who not only excel at the undergraduate level, but show considerable potential for success in graduate school, as well.  One young woman in particular was everything you could want in a budding scholar.  I was happy to help her navigate the process, and although Texas Tech wouldn’t have been my choice for her, she was enthusiastic about her interactions with the department, and I wrote a very positive letter of recommendation for her.  I warned her about the prospect of censorship, and she took it seriously, but she was thrilled to have been offered an assistantship there.  That was all, of course, before this latest round of anti-intellectual shenanigans.  I heard from her a week or so ago; she plans to go ahead with her studies at TTU.  Curmie may wish she’d chosen a different school, but he sincerely hopes never to have the words “I told you so” form in his mind in this regard.

The white robe was at
the cleaners.

I will say this: if Creighton and his evil minions mess with her—whether by censoring professors’ ability to present the full range of information required of a course or by limiting what she could choose as a thesis topic—he’d do well to be careful out there.  Curmie makes no threats, but there just might be an angry old man (like the one at the left) with long grey hair, a beard, and a Gandalf staff, parked in Creighton’s outer office.

So… is the memo sent out by Creighton really as bad as Erin in the Morning would have us believe?  Probably not quite.  It does, for example, differentiate between course content which is “centered on,” “includes,” or contains “incidental reference” to SOGI (that’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, for those of you not au courant with the latest alphabet soup).  But there’s always one sentence too many.  It’s expressly permitted, for example, to discuss “chromosomal variations” or “intersex biological conditions,” but not to make the obvious inference, that there might be more than two genders, or that “gender identity is a fluid spectrum.”

Curmie also wants to tease out the implications of some of Creighton’s definitions.  An example of an “incidental reference,” for example, is “a single sentence in a larger text.”  That hardly qualifies as a reference at all, and is most likely a side comment rather than part of a prepared lecture.  Curmie never taught a course that would qualify as “centered on” SOGI topics, but he has a number of good friends who have done so, and most if not all of Curmie’s classes are in the “includes” range.  This is especially true if we look at the “SO” part of “SOGI.”  Most of the hoopla of late has centered on trans or gender-fluid people, but if sexual orientation is also part of the equation, then anything related to homosexuality also figures into the mix.

But notice that the course need not be “centered on” one of those impermissible subjects.  It’s enough if some “course materials” do so, and Curmie can’t remember ever teaching a course that didn’t cross over that threshold.  Moreover, “in courses where course materials (inclusive of all assigned works, readings, case studies, peer-reviewed research, videos, etc.) are centered on or include sexual orientation or gender identity, alternate materials must be utilized.”  (emphasis added)  Must, mind you. 

It’s important to point out, of course, the implicit assumptions here.  Cishet relationships, because they are in the majority (and because that’s the world inhabited by the censors), are de facto not considered to be about sexual orientation, thus conflating the statistically probable with the normative.  There’s a pretty wide range of statistics concerning what percentage of the population self-identifies as LGBTQ+.  Let’s go with the Williams Institute report that puts that figure at 5.5%.  (The rate in Texas is slightly lower, at 5.1%, but that still means that well over a million Texas thus identify.)  Two things are significant here.  First, nationwide, university-age (18-24) respondents self-reported at nearly three times that figure, 15.2%.  Second, we’re going to pretend for a moment that everyone who didn’t say they were LGBT self-identified as straight, whereas a significant number of people didn’t give a yes/no answer to the question (e.g., they listed themselves as asexual, refused to answer, etc.).

Even using this probably artificially low percentage of LGBT people in the population, the chances are better than even that a class of a mere 14 Texas students includes at least one LGBT individual.  If we use the national figure for 18-24-year-olds, a class of 25 students is almost 98.5% likely to have an LGBT student, and the likelihood would be three or four.  Curmie has taught core classes of 73 (the capacity of the room) several times at a Texas public university.  Using the estimate for university-aged individuals, the chances that all 73 of those students are straight is about .0006%.  Not very damned likely, in other words.  And those LGBTQ+ students might like to see themselves treated with at least respect if not representation.

Of course, Creighton wants to leave himself some wiggle room.  This manifests in two forms: selective enforcement and prior restraint.  No matter how precise the language tries to be, it can never allow everything it wants to allow and disallow everything it wants to disallow.  There will be judgment calls every semester, and the criteria will seldom be limited to course content.  You will perhaps recall, Gentle Reader, that the two Texas A&M professors who most ran afoul of that university’s censorial dictates were the Chair of the Academic Freedom Council and the President of the A&M chapter of the American Association of University Professors, an organization that’s very close to being a faculty union if indeed it isn’t one: people most likely to think that faculty ought to have a say in university governance, in other words.  Coincidence, huh?

But Curmie is most concerned about prior restraint.  Most faculty would like to… you know… keep their jobs, and not everyone has a sufficiently high profile that they can just pack up and leave for a private university the way Martin Peterson (he of the infamous reading from Plato in a philosophy course) did.  That means looking over your shoulder a lot. 

Will I get into trouble if I talk about the piquancy of a boy playing a girl playing a boy playing a girl in As You Like It?  What about the theory that Peace in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata may have been played by a (nude) female slave, thereby not following the tradition of women being played by men?  Can I talk about John Lyly’s Gallathea at all?  (Or do I get a partial exemption because I wrote my Master’s thesis about Lyly?)  Should I not show that video about the onnagata when discussing Kabuki?  Or mention the only Chinese Opera actor most Americans have ever heard of, Mei Lanfang, who played exclusively women’s roles?

Can I, as an acting teacher, assign roles to student actors which may not conform to their sexual orientation or gender identity?  Must a production of Jean Genet’s The Maids cast all three roles as women (the play is written that way), or could a director cast the play with men, as Genet suggested he might like to do?  Is the farcical element of, say, The Breasts of Tiresias, in which the female lead grows a full beard in a matter of seconds and the male lead gives birth to 40,000 babies overnight, enough to exempt it?  Is The Children’s Hour verboten?  Is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?  Is Rent?  Or Some Like It Hot?  Is it trans actors or trans roles I can’t use?

It’s easier to avoid that confrontation, to submit, to water everything down to accommodate the stolid and the bigoted.  But that’s not education; that’s capitulation.  Far better to suggest to Chancellor Creighton that he perform an exercise best suited to particularly limber hermaphrodites.  (Easy for Curmie to say…)