Shame On Lake Michigan College

An educated person is one capable of drawing distinctions. The goal is something akin to wisdom, or at the very least, mastery of the art of learning. But those skills are not apparently valued at Lake Michigan College. Hysteria will do there, and unreasoning moral panic.

LMC president Robert Harrison told the press recently that a new rule is about to be promulgated on the campus: sex offenders need not apply. The college intends on adopting a blanket prohibition against permitting any enrolled sex offender to step foot on the campus.

I wonder whether the campus police intend on interviewing faculty members to see whether there are unknown offenders on staff. Odds are, there are at least a few folks who had sex with a minor in the hazy and steamy days of their youth. And I suspect there are more than a few folks who touched places they ought not to have toucvhed. And what of urination in public? That's a sex offense, too, at least in some jurisdictions.

Apparently, the dead of students at the college just discovered that three undergraduates were registered sex offenders. The press does not report the underlying offenses of conviction. But the mere sound of it is chilling enough for the hysteria mongers at LMC.

Harrison says that the college has not yet decided if such a policy violates state and federal law. The college Board of Trustees is likely to consider adopting an official policy soon.

What a pitiable example of why our sex offender policies are haywire. Three young men, and they are certain to be men, are at the campus trying to get an education. Sure, they've erred. But they are on the road to rehabilitation. The blue noses at LMC don't see it that way, however.

Somehow, I doubt that this is an example of the "New Way of Thinking," the Benton Harbor, Michigan college hypes on its website. It looks like the same old hysteria to me.