In 2007, Keith John Sampson, a middle-aged student working his way through Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis as a janitor, was declared guilty of racial harassment. Without granting Sampson a hearing, the university administration — acting as prosecutor, judge and jury — convicted him of "openly reading [a] book related to a historically and racially abhorrent subject."

"Openly." "Related to." Good grief.

The book, "Notre Dame vs. the Klan," celebrated the 1924 defeat of the Ku Klux Klan in a fight with Notre Dame students. But some of Sampson's coworkers disliked the book's cover, which featured a black-and-white photograph of a Klan rally. Someone was offended, therefore someone else must be guilty of harassment.