Looks like the Charleston School of Law (CSOL) isn’t the only institution in South Carolina’s historic “Holy City” facing controversy …
The College of Charleston (a.k.a. the “College of Knowledge”) is staring down a major scandal of its own following its selection of a sexually charged graphic novel as required reading for incoming freshman.
The novel – Fun Home by Alison Bechdel – was first published in 2006. It addresses the author’s upbringing in rural Pennsylvania, most notably her relationship with her father and her affinity for girl-on-girl sex. The book includes several NSFW drawings – including one of a woman performing oral sex on her partner.
(Here’s the College of Knowledge’s reading guide for the book, in case you’re interested … and here’s one of the NSFW pages which has everybody so mad).
Given its racy content, Fun Home – and the $50,000 South Carolina taxpayers are shelling out to subsidize its purchase – is prompting some serious outcry from social conservatives, including Oran Smith of the Palmetto Family Council.
“It really does cross a line,” Smith says.
Frankly, Fun Home doesn’t offend us. However its selection as required reading for college freshman at a taxpayer-funded institution of higher learning shows questionable judgment on the part of the school. In fact it strikes us as yet another example of why public dollars shouldn’t go to fund any higher educational course, period.
We believe the Palmetto State’s bloated, duplicative higher ed system – which spends a disproportionate amount of tax dollars to produce an inferior product – should be set free to pursue its destiny in the private sector. Unfortunately, the opposite is happening. South Carolina’s sprawling network of thirty-three state supported colleges and universities continues to slip its tentacles deeper into a so-called “economic development” role – resulting in colossal failures like the University of South Carolina’s spectacularly failed “Innovista” boondoggle.
Fun Home is a blip on the radar compared to costly disasters like that … but at the end of the day it (like the higher “education” it is part of) is not a core function of government.
32 comments
lol…..”higher education”
It’s like Idiocracy was a documentary and 1984 a road map.
I suppose the parents and students don’t realize they can get the same education at the local 7-11 by asking the Pakistani behind the counter for one the covered up magazines and paying him $5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hetaBX00wtI
edit: “one of the”
lol…..”higher education”
It’s like Idiocracy was a documentary and 1984 a road map.
I suppose the parents and students don’t realize they can get the same education at the local 7-11 by asking the Pakistani behind the counter for one the covered up magazines and paying him $5.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hetaBX00wtI
edit: “one of the”
C of C’s administration is about as liberal as they come. Spend, spend, spend, raise tuition, raise tuition, raise tuition. It’s a good institution and could do so much better, but then the SC General Assembly isn’t helping by putting Pansy King-Reid on the Board of Trustees who can’t even speak proper English and never filed a tax return for several years.
C of C’s administration is about as liberal as they come. Spend, spend, spend, raise tuition, raise tuition, raise tuition. It’s a good institution and could do so much better, but then the SC General Assembly isn’t helping by putting Pansy King-Reid on the Board of Trustees who can’t even speak proper English and never filed a tax return for several years.
Yet you think public dollars should flow into your wallet so you can send your kids to a school that preaches that Adam and Eve had pet dinosaurs.
And I was taught that they had one of those wild poodles that roamed the earth!
Just remember that it was PBS, via public dollars, that taught everyone’s kids that they could have pet dinosaurs too.
I saw a 10 foot dinosaur at a pond in Kiawah earlier this month….
Yet you think public dollars should flow into your wallet so you can send your kids to a school that preaches that Adam and Eve had pet dinosaurs.
And I was taught that they had one of those wild poodles that roamed the earth!
Just remember that it was PBS, via public dollars, that taught everyone’s kids that they could have pet dinosaurs too.
I saw a 10 foot dinosaur at a pond in Kiawah earlier this month….
Oran Smith is one of those guys who isn’t happy unless he’s pissed off about something. Sorta like Rush and Beck.
Oran Smith is one of those guys who isn’t happy unless he’s pissed off about something. Sorta like Rush and Beck.
God Almighty! I looked at the pdf and if that is the quality of writing CofC is striving for —then SC is in trouble. Who gets PAID for that dribble? Even (bless me O Lord) the GrandTango’s posts were LITERATURE compared to that, whatever.
It’s bush league.
God Almighty! I looked at the pdf and if that is the quality of writing CofC is striving for —then SC is in trouble. Who gets PAID for that dribble? Even (bless me O Lord) the GrandTango’s posts were LITERATURE compared to that, whatever.
It’s bush league.
That looks like a comic strip straight out of the Sunday paper! Peanuts is probably a better literary work!
That looks like a comic strip straight out of the Sunday paper! Peanuts is probably a better literary work!
The author is a real looker:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Alison_Bechdel_at_Politics_and_Prose.jpg/200px-Alison_Bechdel_at_Politics_and_Prose.jpg
No wonder she’s munching rugs.
That’s a she?
The author is a real looker:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/86/Alison_Bechdel_at_Politics_and_Prose.jpg/200px-Alison_Bechdel_at_Politics_and_Prose.jpg
No wonder she’s munching rugs.
That’s a she?
My question: why are college freshman assigned to read a comic book? What happened to old-fashioned English Lit? It has withstood the test of time pretty well.
My question: why are college freshman assigned to read a comic book? What happened to old-fashioned English Lit? It has withstood the test of time pretty well.
This is a major scandal?
This is a major scandal?
Does anyone else find it amusing that a graduate of a third tier state university thinks he is qualified to mock ANY school as the “College of Knowledge?”
Does anyone else find it amusing that a graduate of a third tier state university thinks he is qualified to mock ANY school as the “College of Knowledge?”