1 / 5 No Swearing

Legislation proposed in the Arizona state Senate would apply the same restrictions on profanity for college lectures as it would for preschool classrooms. The so-called <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/02/10/arizona-debates-legislation-classroom-obscenitiy-political-discrimination" target="_hplink">"G-rated" bill </a>would prohibit college professors from using language in the classroom that would be violate Federal Communications Commission broadcast obscenity standards. A school would be <a href="http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/index.php/article/2012/02/arizona_bill_censoring_college_campuses_unconstitutional" target="_hplink">required to terminate</a> a college instructor who commits three offenses of using curse words in a classroom before students legally able to smoke cigarettes and buy porn. "The bill doesn't even require that the profanity be uttered in the classroom," Greg Lukianoff, president of Foundation for Individual Rights in Education <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/arizona-state-senate-to-c_b_1260291" target="_hplink">wrote on HuffPost</a>, "it just generally says that if a professor or, for that matter, a K-12 teacher, engages in FCC-regulated conduct or speech at all, he or she can lose their job. Of course, even if this were limited strictly to classroom speech it would still be laughed out of court as unconstitutional on its face." Lukianoff wondered how a cinema class could be taught without showing films like <em>The Godfather</em>,<em> The Graduate</em>, <em>Annie Hall</em>, or <em>Pulp Fiction</em>. There are also concerns about how <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/02/10/arizona-debates-legislation-classroom-obscenitiy-political-discrimination" target="_hplink">professors would be able to</a> teach their classes about sexually transmitted diseases. Who would propose a law to regulate profanity in the classroom like this? State Sen. Lori Klein, a Republican who gained notoriety for <a href="http://thedemocraticdaily.com/2011/07/12/arizona-senator-lori-klein-waves-gun-reporters-face/" target="_hplink">pointing a loaded gun</a> at a reporter's face in the state capitol.

Alamy