The Iowa Controversy

A while back we noted the pink visitor's locker room at the University of Iowa. Not surprisingly, an adjunct law professor took exception to this terrible insult. On the now defunct blog BuzWords, home to "Humble observations from an NPR-listening, law-loving, hockey-playing, left-voting, Dunkin-Donuts-coffee-missing, east-coast transplant to Iowa City, Iowa," the professor writes:

How is it sexist? How is it homophobic? Pink is the color strongly associated with girls and effeminate men. In this context, putting your opponent in a pink locker room is saying 'you are weak like a girl' or 'you are weak like a gay man.' The pink locker room is a subtle way of painting the words 'sissy,' 'girlie man' and 'f*agg*t' on the walls. This belittles women and gay men by insisting they are weak, subservient, powerless, nondominant, and generally of lower status than men.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the academy.