This city is suffering from an overactive ego. Just this weekend, two of the city’s and university’s prominent figures made comments suggesting the people in Madison are better than everyone else.

Earlier this semester, I wrote a column about how Madison is known to be 25 square miles surrounded by reality — it looks as though some people really want to put up walls, connect the two lakes on either side of the isthmus and make downtown Madison a type of fortress of “rightness.”

Saturday, Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Paul Barrows decided to change his decision to pull funding from an event that in part targeted lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered high school students who were to come and tour the University of Wisconsin campus.

Friday, he said the university had no right to be soliciting students on the basis of their sexual orientation. The next day he changed his mind and decided to restore funding.

He told the Capital Times they were initially worried about providing funding because, “While we still want to encourage those students to be welcome on our campus and reach out to them, we have to craft our initiatives and our message very carefully. We have to meet these districts where they are. A lot of people look at these issues differently than we do in our politically correct way of looking at the world.”

Our politically correct way of looking at the world?

Yes, Madison is definitely more PC than the rest of the country, but that is not necessarily a good thing. Ultra-political correctness like what exists in Madison often means being overly sensitive regarding many issues and ultimately leads to restrictions on speech to make sure no one’s feelings are hurt.

And, just because the rest of the world may not agree with Madison does not mean the rest of the world is stuck in the mindset of the 1950s.

Of course, there are still people who are racially bigoted, scared of homosexuality and intolerant of different beliefs — that is going to be found anywhere, even in Madison. But Madison is not the Mecca that Barrows or other liberals in this city seem to suggest, and there are many people outside of Madison who work and live happily with people of different races, sexual orientations and/or religions.

After all, Madison has its fair share of problems, too. A string of racial incidents this semester has heightened the problems of campus climate again. The university is still struggling to provide a welcome for all students of different races, sexual orientations, religions and sex.

The university, in dealing with various issues, should not blame people outside of Madison for how things are in Madison.

After all, the reality of the situation may be that the university is wrongly assuming what those outside of Madison believe. Instead of assuming those outside of Madison just don’t understand, more than likely it is those in Madison who do not understand the reality of the situation.

In addition, the events that occurred this semester during the student-fee allocation process also reeked of egos gone amuck.

Some of the fighting that occurred between the liberal and conservative members of SSFC was childish. Members cast votes and filed suits in an effort to regain power in SSFC. The liberal members were unhappy that the conservatives were in the majority, and viewpoint neutrality was used as a tool by both sides to get what they wanted.

Often the fights came down to name-calling and personal attacks rather than a real debate of the issues. Little thought was actually given as to if the groups in question were using their money wisely. Many members of SSFC were more worried about soothing their own egos by silencing others and worrying about what was best for them rather than about what was best for the entire student body.

The egos on this university are not the only ones out of control. Mayor Sue Bauman has also been doing her fair share of encouraging people outside of Madison to stay out.

In a Chicago Tribune story this Sunday about the Halloween riots, Bauman attributed most of the problem to out-of-towners and said efforts will be made to encourage students not to invite friends in from all over the country next year.

Encouraging people not to come to Madison is a bad move. This city definitely does not suffer from too much tourism. Madison has not come close to reaching its full potential for attracting national conferences, businesses or the bustling tourism it could bring in.

Not for one minute should the city be telling people not to come. As Bauman said in the Tribune, most of the 65,000 people were keeping to themselves, and it was only a few who were causing the problem. Don’t push all the blame onto out-of-towners; Madison citizens were there too.

Many Madison citizens need to realize the world does not revolve around them and that the rest of the world is not wrong just because they do not act or believe as Madisonians do.

Madison is more politically correct than most cities, but that does not mean that the rest of the world consists of intolerant people. People outside of the island are not stuck in the 1950s nor are they somehow inferior to Madisonians. People on the island need to start realizing Madison is not all they are cracking it up to be.

Katie Harbath ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in journalism and political science.