Originally published by Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Charlotte Law and Civil Rights Examiner for Examiner.com

In the wake of the discovery that students had painted racist messages on the campus “free speech” graffiti tunnel walls, UNC President Erskine Boyles is asking a commission to study whether the university has an adequate code of conduct. Apparently, some people were bothered by seeing the N-word emblazoned near Tar Heel blue.

Apparently, some people were also “bothered” by the sight of Christmas trees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus where President Boyles works, as well, as Christmas trees have been banned from its two main libraries for the first time in four centuries. What about those that are bothered by not seeing the trees? Must they await Arbor Day?

Democrat Boyles, former Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton, has asked no commission to study this matter. Rather, he sent the associate provost for university libraries out to report that Duke, N.C. State, nor colleagues “elsewhere” were displaying Christmas trees and that:

We strive in our collection to have a wide variety of ideas. It doesn’t seem right to celebrate one particular set of customs.(Especially not the one being celebrated in the photo at right in the particular nation within which UNC is located?)*

Apparently it does “seem right” to collect racist musing in pedestrian tunnels for students to gaze upon, but Christmas is not considered part of a “wide variety of ideas.”

These are the people in charge of “higher” learning?

Given academia’s now four decades long aversion to tolerance for the celebration of religious diversity unless extremist adherents of a particular religion threaten lynchings for cartoon depictions of its prophet; let’s teach dispensers of this higher learning a lesson:

Caleb Howe, Charlotte Political Examiner reminds that Christmas is more than just a religious holiday:

Christmas is a federal holiday. It’s also a secular holiday in addition to being religious. Christmas is a cultural tradition in the United States, yet these groups, who often lay claim to being sensitive to people’s cultures, dismiss the notion on its face. The one type of tradition or culture which Americans may feel free to attack or purge is American tradition and culture.

This is not the usual case of a federal judge scrutinizing nativity displays at a courthouse or purging the name of Christ from carols sung by grammar schoolers for his birthday. God’s name has long been treated the same as obscenity by court decisions addressing local public school curricula since the 1960’s supreme court decisions banning prayer and bible reading.

No, this is a case of voluntary action by the people that “educate” judges that make such decisions. At least in public schools they ban racist taunts.

At universities in the Tar Heel State, commissions still must weigh in before they would dare ban the n-word, but Christmas is banned, period.

Damn the commissions.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

* Charlotte Observer link to December 5 story was malfunctioning when this story went to press.