Back in 2005, Chris Lee, a student at Washington State University, set out to make a comedy musical that, in the tradition of South Park, offended as broad a spectrum of people as possible. Unfortunately for him, he succeeded. His musical--a very loose parody of Mel Gibson's 2004 film The Passion of the Christ--earned him protests, death threats, and even an organized attempt among administrators and students to disrupt the play.
Today, my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, unveils a new video about Chris' strange journey:
You can see all the documentation about this case yourself here, including the e-mail in which the Washington State University administrator admits that they counseled students to stand up and yell during the play. While the university did not advise the students to shout threats of physical violence and even death threats during the play, that's what the protesters did. Meanwhile, the campus police told Chris they would not protect the actors if the angry protesters decided to rush the stage. Amazingly, the president of WSU actually praised the university-funded, threat-shouting, play-disrupting students, saying they "exercised their rights of free speech in a very responsible manner."
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