Encyclopedia Brown would call it the Case of the Abominable Snow-Penis.

Radical feminists and free-speech advocates would agree, but for different reasons.

A week ago, in the aftermath of the largest snowfall to hit the East Coast in recent history, members of the Harvard men’s crew team got artistic. In a display of questionable maturity (Harvard boasts many of the most academically gifted but socially inept students in the country), these guys used the fresh snow to build a nine-foot-tall snow sculpture of a penis in the courtyard between freshman dorms.

Or they erected it, I guess. In lurid detail. Somebody was compensating for something. At any rate, the prank was juvenile but harmless, or so they thought.

A few hours later, two women from one of the nearby dorms played Lorena Bobbitt to these guys’ statue. That was the women’s right — this was a public area — and it was probably the best thing to do in the interest of good taste. As the Clinton scandal proved, few erections deserve a public audience.

But then things got complicated.

The women, one of whom was a rape survivor, claimed that not only was the snow-penis offensive (it clearly was), but that “by logical extension” these men sought to force their sexuality upon women. It became a symbol of gender violence, and suddenly offensiveness had crossed the line into harassment in rhetoric if not in disciplinary action.

And thus, the Case of the Abominable Snow-Penis became a microcosm for most of the campus free-speech debates of the last 15 years — debates where major public universities like the University of Wisconsin have taken center stage.

This crew-team doofus squad intended this microcosmic effect no more than it meant any ill will — if anything, building a nine-foot replica of a body part less than one-tenth that size is a public display of their own sexual insecurity. To no one’s surprise, people were offended. To the horror of free-speech defenders, they were accused by many of outright sexual harassment, of creating a demeaning environment, and of symbolic violence against women — charges that get the attention of college administrators.

These women cannot be condemned for their feelings. But I refuse to condemn the adolescent sculptors for anything other than immaturity.

Simply put, colleges are not doing their jobs if you are never offended in your four-to-six years as a student. Living in an environment sanitized from controversy and emotion is both unbearably boring and undeniably dangerous to the growth of a free mind. I must admit, I was offended as a man when reading the radical feminist Catherine MacKinnon in one of my classes last year. But I’m glad I did. Aside from gaining insight into the perspective of her followers, it forced me to think about why I felt so offended in the first place; I had to engage in self-discovery. And isn’t that the point of liberal arts classes?

Some could argue that the snow-penis case is special, due to the woman’s painful personal experience with male sexual domination. I have great sympathy for her: rape is the single most atrocious crime and personal violation I can imagine short of murder, and maybe more damaging — the murder victim does not have to struggle with the trauma years after the crime.

For her, the snow penis was a symbol of oppression. Voluntarily or involuntarily, she gave it that meaning, one wholly separate from the intent of its builders. The most dangerous action of the sanitary speech movement has been to determine and punish offensive or harassing speech according to their own standards, independent of intent. Such a policy creates more new victims than it satiates old ones.

Colleges across the country are concerned with diversity and “campus climate” today as much as ever; UW recently created a new administrative office to improve those very issues. For the future of the university, let us hope these advocates realize that the most serious damage one can inflict on a campus climate for learning is to cleanse it of offensiveness. By the time everyone is satisfied with the cleaning, there will be nothing left — both in the classroom and our skulls.

Back at Harvard, the snow-penis debate rages on. A campus group held a discussion Tuesday of “feminist perspectives on the statue.” From offense, education.

Sigmund Freud, the master of phallic symbolism, once conceded that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And sometimes a nine-foot erect snow-penis is just a nine-foot erect snow penis. Anyone was entitled to knock it down. But only someone in search of the narrowest possible education would demand that anyone, even a bunch of insecure goofballs, be denied the right to lawful expression in the very place designed to foster it.

Matt Lynch ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in English and political science.