Tonight on 'Stossel': Here Come the Speech Police

Recently, as Torch readers saw here, John Stossel's syndicated column paid heed to Keith John Sampson's outrageous case at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis. Today, in a blog entry previewing tonight's Stossel program, he notes an equally outrageous case: that of Washington State University student Chris Lee, whose satirical The Passion of the Musical was viciously shouted down by students whose tickets had been bought and paid for by WSU administrators.

As Stossel puts it:

[Lee] didn't trick people. He got everyone who attended the show to sign a statement saying that they knew the play was offensive.

But some students complained anyway.  His school's administration then bought 40 of them tickets to the show, and they interrupted the play with jeers and threats, some of which were caught on camera. Disruptive students shout[ed] things like "Only a black boy can say nigga. Don't you ever f---ing say that again, you little bastard." In the end, Chris had to censor the show before he could continue.

Lee appears as a guest on tonight's program, along with FIRE President Greg Lukianoff and several other contributors to the recently released New Threats to Freedom. Don't miss it.