Two weeks ago Ivy Style ran a post about the traditions and sartorial formality found at the University Of The South, otherwise known as Sewanee. The students shared the post assiduously, and it went on to break our all-time one-day traffic record.

But as revealed in the comments thread, as well as on Ivy Style’s Facebook page, the post had been shared by the school itself on its official Facebook page. And while most students seemed to find the photo gallery post a tribute to be proud of, a few women found the post “despicable,” as well as sexist, racist, classist, etc., etc., because of the phrases “fresh-faced and pretty” and “when females acted like ladies,” phrases that were taken from a reader email I had received.

So despite the post racking up over 2,000 likes on Facebook, plus many thousands more in pageviews, Sewanee removed the link on its Facebook page, along with the ensuing discussion.

Apparently someone decided this tempest in a teapot was worthy of alerting the website The College Fix (CONTENT WARNING: conservative/libertarian points of view), a news site that reports on political correctness on college campuses. Last week I heard from a reporter for the site (who happens to be female, a fact probably germane to this discussion), who asked me for some quotes and clarifications, and today the site has put up an article entitled “College deletes article calling its female students ‘pretty’ after complaints of sexism.”

Here’s a snippet:

The College Fix was alerted to the situation by an avid reader of Ivy Style who said the brouhaha is not surprising given the current campus climates seen nationwide: “This outburst is similar to what happened in other campuses nationwide – at Yale, Mizzou, Dartmouth etc. Is there any question that the root cause of this perceived grievance comes from the same well that fueled Yale’s Halloween costume chaos and Mizzou’s BLM? I think not. What was an innocent article, admiring properly dressed college students, turned out to be something much more.”

I told The College Fix (though the quote didn’t make the story), that I didn’t think this is a particularly egregious act of censorship. But that’s probably because we’ve all gotten used to this sort of thing.

Oddly enough, it was only after the tempest began swirling in the teapot that I revisited the original Sewanee post from last September and saw that The College Fix had inspired it with a piece of its own called “Dress for success: Why college students should junk the gym shorts and sneakers.” So things have gone full circle: the PC-monitoring site inspired an Ivy Style post, which months later went on to inspire a College Fix post. Strange how that works.

In other PC news, the Australian comedian and social justice satirist Neel Kolhatkar has just released a new short film on YouTube called “The Privilege Game.” His clever spoof on campus political correctness from last year, “Modern Educayshun,” has racked up 4.5 million views. — CC