IT MAKES A GREAT ARMBAND. Ann Althouse discovers a creepy new University of Wisconsin plan to encourage students to become casual informants to the Gauleiter Dean of Students.

Students can report anything, from a hate crime to graffiti to verbal harassment. SAJA will attempt to follow up in every instance, contingent on the information provided, to investigate possible misconduct and to provide resources to the victim.

[Interim Dean of Students Lori] Berquam says that many hate or bias incidents are relayed anecdotally to ODOS staff. The reporting form is one way to quantify how many incidents take place on campus and provide a method for following up.

The acronyms refer, respectively, to Student Advocacy and Judicial Affairs, which at Wisconsin apparently has a mission beyond open-container violations and cheating, and the Office of the Dean of Students, which apparently fancies itself capable of running a network of informers.

Fortunately, the resistance is strong. Professor Donald Downs notes,

In other words, the present policy amounts to a speech code, as it encourages people to file reports on other people’s attitudes and speech that informants deem insufficiently senstive.

Professor Althouse has been gathering designs for that armband.

Wisconsin's administration never ceases to amaze me. Just before the student volunteers start calling around asking graduates to send some money, they've given me this year's reason to say no.

RUNNING EXTRA. View a sample informer report.