The Tolerance Police in Force again

Review Journal has a story about Hans Hoppe, a 55 year old world renown economist who lectures at UNLV and who has stuck his foot in it. Talking about groups of people, how they plan and spend and thus how it affects the economy, Hoppe made observations about several groups of people and their spending patterns, including this one, that: "homosexuals tend to plan less for the future than heterosexuals. Reasons for the phenomenon include the fact that homosexuals tend not to have children. They also tend to live riskier lifestyles than heterosexuals."

A student was "offended" and lodged an informal complaint. Hoppe said that, at the request of university officials, he clarified in his next class that he was speaking in generalities only and did not mean to offend anyone. As an example of what he meant, he offered this: Italians tend to eat more spaghetti than Germans, and Germans tend to eat more sauerkraut than Italians. It is not universally true, he said, but it is generally true. The student then filed a formal complaint, Hoppe said, alleging that Hoppe did not take the complaint seriously.

Crap, I don't take the complaint seriously, either, but UNLV did, docking him a week's pay and issuing a letter of reprimand. Hoppe, a tenured prof, has rejected this, and has enlisted the ACLU in his case against university officials.

Hoppe said he is dumbfounded by the university's response to the student's complaint. He states "I have given this lecture all over the world and never had any complaints about it." It is not his job, he said, to consider how a student might feel about economic theories.

Bingo, Dr. Hoppe.

Full text of the article is HERE