The blogosphere started buzzing last week with the report from the Chronicle of Higher Education that Washington State University had removed a required program for freshmen that included reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Was it politically motivated? Was one more landgrant school succumbing to the pressures of corporate agribusiness? The NY Times reports that the decision was purely financial, and that food safety wonk Bill Marler’s 11th hour check was enough to reinstate the program.
Not so fast, says Tom Laskawy, on Grist, who cites a bad actor on the school’s Board of Regents as the possible culprit in the book’s removal…
Either way, the book is back on the program. And there’s nothing like a quick book banning scandal–real or imagined, true or false– to fuel our passion for free speech.
