I was sitting in class the other day and something frightened me out of my boredom. There was a big colorful poster on the wall with Penn State's logo in the lower right corner. There were two hands, one coming from the bottom of the page and the other coming from the top, pointing towards the center of the poster, where "HATE" was typed in big, scary letters. In the upper right corner and the lower left corner was written, "REPORT IT!"

The people who made this piece of propaganda, which would make Arthur Miller cringe, have two important assumptions: that hate is rampant, and that the expression of hate is so awful it needs to be reported to an authority. If I were an ignorant freshman, I might read the poster and think that there's a racist under every bed. There are racists everywhere and they must be reported to the university to be punished.

The purpose of the poster is to advertise a Web site the university has set up on which people can REPORT HATE! What exactly constitutes hate and what the university does with the information once it gets it are two questions the poster does not answer. I should probably report myself because on Sunday afternoons, I always say hateful things about the Dallas Cowboys.

The poster should come as no surprise because the university has long standing policies that restrict unpleasant speech.

These policies usually stay buried in the GURU server where they remain the university's dirty little secret, but I'd like to shed some light on them. I suggest that everyone read administrative policies AD 29, AD 41, and AD 42. They can be found at www.guru.psu.edu/policies.

A slice of idiocy from AD 29 reads, "Acts of intolerance will not be tolerated at The Pennsylvania State University." Do those who wrote this policy realize that being intolerant involves believing that certain ideas are so bad that they "will not be tolerated"?

So, what is intolerance anyway? I have a great intolerance for the kind of cheap vodka that comes in half-gallon sized plastic bottles, but somehow I don't think that's what the lawgivers who wrote AD 29 had in mind.

Intolerance is defined as "an attitude, feeling or belief in furtherance of which an individual acts to intimidate, threaten or show contempt for other individuals or groups."

AD 29 was never intended to be enforced widely because banning "contempt" for individuals would effectively ban all interpersonal conflict.

AD 29 was intended to protect members of certain racial, sexual, and political minorities from certain "intolerant" attitudes, feelings, or beliefs. The notion that racial minorities need protection from offensive speech is definitely paternalistic and probably racist.

It couldn't get anymore ridiculous, right? Wrong, the laughs keep on rolling in AD 29. After prohibiting "intolerance" on campus, the university has the audacity to tell us "the First Amendment of the United States' [sic] Constitution assures the right of free expression." I only hope Graham Spanier will put down the yacht catalogue long enough to look up the word "irony."

AD 42 bans "unwelcome banter, teasing, or jokes that are derogatory." Banter is defined as good-natured and usually witty and animated joking. My life would be pretty dull without large doses of unwelcome banter. And do not, under any circumstances, create an "offensive . . . learning environment" because, according to AD 42, this could result in "expulsion from the university."

AD 41 was created especially for the guys. It bans "verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature" that "has the purpose or effect of interfering unreasonably with the individual's work or academic performance or creates an offensive, hostile, or intimidating working or learning environment." So chaps, you better stop ogling the girl who sits in front of you in economics because if she thinks you're ugly, your hideous face might be creating "a hostile learning environment."

Wait, that last sentence was good natured, witty, and joking. Oh my, I think I've just engaged in "unwelcome banter."

I now recognize the mental anguish that my verbal conduct can inflict on my less intelligent readers. I am an immoral cretin. A nd to the vice provost of educational equity, please, I beg you to accept my sincerest apologies, for in the future I promise to subscribe to your humorless, tired brand of politically correct thuggery.

There is some good news to report though. As far as I can tell, the university no longer publicly enforces these policies.

But what the university does behind the closed doors of judicial affairs and other university offices is beyond the reach of this columnist. I have no way of knowing how many students or professors were (or are) being persecuted under these policies.

There were two incidents this semester where minority groups on campus complained of intolerant speech, and the administration took no action to stifle the offending words.

Responding to complaints about hate speech on campus Terrell Jones, the vice provost for educational equity, said, "The First Amendment says [offensive speech] needs to be permitted." Why have AD 29, AD 41, and AD 41 if the administrators really believe in free speech?

And it's not like these policies are holdovers from an earlier era because several of the policies were recently revised, most notably AD 42 in August of this year.

I can't answer this question with any certainty, but I suspect that Spanier and his cronies have figured out that stifling free speech doesn't play well with the public.

Quashing campus debate usually leads to a public relations nightmare, and for someone with ambitions for posts greater than the presidency of Penn State, all publicity is not good publicity. AD 29, 41, and 42 remain intact only as showpieces to quiet the political fits of Penn State's noisiest campus groups.

The university has a major contradiction in policy. It embraces free speech publicly, but effectively stifles free expression in its formal, written policies.

It's time the university picks one or the other.

If this column has really interested you (stop laughing), you can get a book length form of my column, without the vodka jokes, in Alan Kors' and Harvey Silvergate's The Shadow University.