Posted on 11/17/2018 11:11:52 AM PST by billorites
When former Dartmouth Professor of Government Ned LeBow cracked a joke on a San Francisco elevator, nobody could have foreseen the international firestorm it would spark. The resulting story of p.c. overreaction and academic idiocy left everyone except the 76-year-old professor looking ridiculous.
But not, apparently, quite ridiculous enough. The p.c. pinheads have censured the professor…again.
The story began at an academic conference in San Francisco when Professor Lebow, currently of King’s College London found himself on the same elevator as Simona Sharoni, a professor of women’s and gender studies at Merrimack College in Massachusetts. When Professor Sharoni courteously asked her fellow riders what floor they needed, Lebow joked “Ladies lingerie, please.”
And that’s where the “courtesy” ended.
Sharoni claims she was offended by the joke, as well as the laughter of the “white, middle-aged men” on the elevator. In her formal complaint to the International Studies Association, the organization hosting the conference, Sharoni said: “After they walked out, the woman standing next to me turned to me and said, ‘I wonder if we should have told them that it is no longer acceptable to make these jokes!'”
The ISA responded to Lebow’s lame joke, not with an eye roll, but with a rebuke. They ordered him to apologize for his “offensive and inappropriate” remark. When he refused, they formally censured him.
Now the story has taken another turn, as recounted by Professor Lebow in the Valley News:
“I discovered that she [Professor Sharoni] had not grown up in either the U.S. or U.K. — where saying “ladies’ lingerie” in an elevator is a well-known gag line — so I explained in the same email the meaning of my remark and how it was in no way directed against women.
"I further suggested that I considered a complaint of the kind she made damaging to efforts of women to combat serious and unacceptable mistreatment.
"She complained to the ISA, this time about my having contacted her, and I was censured a second time."
Comedy is in the eye of the beholder and it may be that Professor Sharoni simply didn’t like Lebow’s attempt at humor. But why complain over an attempt by the gentleman to explain the comment and clear up any confusion over its offensiveness? Complaining the first time was embarrassing enough. Why complain again?
And–a more significant question–why would an (allegedly) serious academic institution like the ISA pile on with a second censure? Professor Lebow has a theory:
“What ISA officials want is not an apology but a capitulation….giving in to their demands would further chill free speech among younger colleagues and students who are far more vulnerable than I am to sanction by their professional organization.”
Somebody in this story is getting bullied. How many people believe it’s the gender-studies professor from Massachusetts?
A joke from another era. Years ago before escalators NYC dept stores like Macy’s bonwit teller Saks bergdorf had up to 5 floors with manned elevators. Sad people like this female professor are so quick to judge an innocent joke from an elderly gentleman
I’m mid ups and I remember the announcements in elevators.
Mid 60s. I’m a dinosaur, but a happy one.
Born in Romania. Grew up in Israel.
If your professional organization sanction you - you would not even respond to that insult? You would let ignorant scientific bureaucrats punish you?
You see the manned elevators in a lot of old movies.
I used to do one every now and then . One was that I would pretend to be on the phone with someone and just as I got to my floor I would say......just make sure you hide the body real good.
Probably not a good idea these days with security cameras everywhere but there was a time in this country when you could actually kid around.
Friend had business in the Hall of Justice in LA Suits and uniforms in the elevator. guy gets in, what floor is narcotics. My friend says buy on 3 sell on 5.
I remember the manned elevators at G Fox and Sage Allen stores when I was young. Some of the companies still had those gorgeous old elevators with gates.
Yes I remember the gates. Fascinating to see them as a child.
I take it the woman was headed to the floor that exists as proof that women are impossible to please.
I visited the Merrimack campus when my kids were looking at colleges. Pretty campus a few miles from NH. It’s Augustine catholic school.surprised it even has gender studies
I will take heat for this but we immediately noticed the security guards were uniformed cops from North Andover and all armed. Turned us off as I went to college around time of Kent State. Also they do not follow the law and search kids backpacks for alcohol. Felt like a foreign country.
We moved on pretty quickly.
..
I know I have heard it since, at least, the 80’s. Then, of course, Are You Being Served. In fact, it is on Sundays on PBS.
Then she should know better. Must have been part of the Israel liberal faction. She needs to retreat back to Romania,
“It sounds like a line straight out of “Are You Being Served”, a British comedy tv show.”
You know you’re getting old when you can look at that photograph and know that every single person shown is dead.
Even Mike Berry, who replaced Trevor Bannister in 1981 is 76 years old!
“Marlon Brando, of all people, worked as an elevator operator. He quit because saying “lingerie” out loud embarrassed him. “
Weird. I bet he didn’t stop eating butter after he made “Last Tango in Paris.”
So what if the old prof was actually headed to ladies lingerie? Let me off on that floor with unmentionable garments?
Can everyone at least agree that Professor Lebow was most likely expressing any carnal thoughts about Professor Sharoni?
“My My My My, Sharoni!”
(Can’t remember who sang that)
>> Political-Correctness will be the death of the Western World.<<
George Carlin once described PC as “America’s newest form of intolerance.”
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