Some individuals for readers to note in the power structure recently in The Sojourn but not pictured for space considerations were: Dr. Brandon Hill, assistant dean of student engagement; Dr. Jerry Pattengale, assistant provost for scholarship and public engagement; Karen Roorbach, assistant provost for academic support services; Dr. Don Sprowl, assistant provost for institutional research and accreditation; and Rose Sprunger, chair of the Pre-licensure Division of the School of Nursing. The power structure pictured was not meant to be all-inclusive but to represent major lines of authority stretching from the board of trustees to the division level.

Politics are a funny business for many reasons. But one thing’s for sure, the candidates aren’t usually career comedians.

That all began to change when Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” filed to open his very own Super PAC tagged as the “Americans for a better tomorrow, tomorrow.”

If you don’t know what a Super PAC is, let me tell you that they are frightening. A Super PAC can accept undisclosed amounts of money from anonymous donors to spend on the political candidate of its choosing. And they only have one real rule: Don’t coordinate with candidates.

Does it seem sketchy yet? It gets worse.This primary season alone, Super PACs have spent $35 million on campaign ads, and they’re only getting started.

The fact that Colbert, a comedian, could own a Super PAC, only shows how ridiculous the system really is. And the “Colbert Super PAC” (yes, he named it after himself) has been serving as an object lesson to explain the hilarity of the system to his viewers.

Let me tell you that I am not usually a funny writer, but I don’t even have to try to make what happened next entertaining.

A poll published on Jan. 10 revealed that Stephen Colbert had a greater following than candidate Jon Huntsman (presumably causing Huntsman to withdraw his candidacy).

Another poll stated that Colbert had a higher favorability score (36 percent) than any GOP candidate.

A third estimated that Colbert would get 13 percent of the vote in a popular election against Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

Three polls said Colbert had a better chance of becoming president than some actual presidential candidates.

So Colbert did the only sane thing a comedian in his position would do –  create an exploratory committee to look into running for office … as the president of South Carolina.

Colbert immediately signed his Super PAC over to best-friend, co-worker and co-owner of bagel- shop- meets- travel- agency “From Schmear to Eternity,” Jon Stewart.

The next week made for the most entertaining television, and best political satire, I have ever witnessed as Stewart and Colbert made sure not to break the only real rule governing candidates and their Super PACs: non-coordination.

They changed the name of the “Colbert Super PAC” to the “Definitely Not Coordinating with Stephen Colbert Super PAC.”

Stewart re-hired Colbert’s Super PAC staff to run the Super PAC and labeled their staffs with red and blue shirts. So no one could be confused, the red team wore blue T-shirts with green letters and the blue team wore red shirts with yellow letters.

Colbert and Steward followed Newt Gingrich’s example as Colbert spoke to his Super PAC “as an individual” through a (cardboard) television statement on Stewart’s The Daily Show.

They called their lawyer Trevor Potter to make sure they were still following the rules while they  had a conversation about what ads were going to run in different South Carolina cities.

And it was all legal, no matter how ridiculous it became.

Sadly, the primary in South Carolina was a closed ballot. Which meant Colbert couldn’t get his own name on the ballot.

Then again, former candidate Herman Cain couldn’t get his name off of the ticket either.

So Colbert asked his followers to vote for Herman Cain to show their support of his potential campaign.

Cain even gave Colbert a ride to his “Rock me like a Herman Cain South Cain-olina Primary Rally” on his infamous tour bus. And Cain sang the Pokemon song he quoted in his farewell speech to the 3,500 attendees.

In the end, Stephen Colbert-Cain only received 1.1 percent of the vote in the South Carolina primary, which forced him to “re-suspend Herman Cain’s suspended campaign.” (Although, that 1 percent accounted for 6,324 votes, thousands more than Cain’s 45 votes in Iowa or 160 in New Hampshire.)

Regardless, Colbert never actually thought his fake bid for the presidency would work, no matter what the polls said, or how much some people wished it might.

But he managed to make his point during his Charleston, South Carolina rally very clear:

“The pundits have asked, ‘Is this all some joke?’ We’ve all heard it haven’t we?” he said. “If they are calling being allowed to form a Super PAC and collecting unlimited and untraceable amounts of money from individuals, unions and corporations; and spend that money on political ads and for personal enrichment; then surrender that Super PAC to one of my closest friends while I explore a run for office. If that is a joke, then they are saying our entire campaign finance system is a joke.”

The sad part is, Colbert wasn’t kidding. This is actually happening, candidates are toeing the line with their Super PACs and there’s very little the government can do to stop it.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that funny at all.

Free speech at a private university is a tricky subject.

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the people peaceably to assemble,” states a portion of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But Indiana Wesleyan University, as a private institution with its own legislative bodies, retains some level of discretion regarding what it will allow to be said on its campus.

In a failed attempt at a complete sentence, Page 26 of the 2011/2012 student handbook states, “Obstructing or disrupting the teaching and/or learning process in any campus classroom, building, or meeting area, or any University-sponsored activity, pedestrian or vehicular traffic, classes, lectures or meetings, obstructing or restricting another person’s freedom of movement or normal functioning, or inciting, aiding, or encouraging other persons to do so.”

The suggestion is, of course, that these things are not permitted. But, in my mind, the regulation leaves more question marks than periods. What precisely does it take to disrupt pedestrian traffic? Would a peaceful protest of picketers in the Barnes Student Center – like the Nov. 2, 2011 “Occupy Wildcat” event – be interpreted as a violation of this clause in the student handbook? I sure hope not.

Likewise, Page 18 says, “Demeaning gestures, intimidation, threats or physical altercations directed toward another person are not permitted.”

Threatening someone with physical harm or actually carrying out said harm is an understandable thing to prohibit. But what exactly is a demeaning gesture? I presume that flipping someone off falls into this category. But what about aggressively shaking a fist at someone, giving someone a thumbs down or placing your index finger into a circle formed by the opposing index finger and thumb? Those are all demeaning gestures, some of which should, I believe, be preserved for the sake of freedom of expression.

Pages 47-48 organize hypothetical violations into two tiers: level one and level two. Verbal altercation or disrespect to university personnel, including resident assistants, desk workers and “Hall Council,” constitutes a level one violation. The list of more severe level two violations includes actions that are considered threatening and/or intimidating. Speaking from experience, I don’t think yelling at one’s roommate should be listed as a punishable offense.

Under the heading “Exercise Self-Control,” page 19 of the handbook emphasizes the regulation-writers’ use of the Bible in developing each guideline: “Those acts which are expressly forbidden in Scripture, including theft, lying, dishonesty, gossip, slander, profanity, vulgarity, adultery, homosexual behavior, premarital sex, drunkenness, gluttony, immodesty, intentional self-harm and occult practice will not be practiced by members of the Indiana Wesleyan community, either on or off campus.”

That list prohibits six types of expression, including lying, dishonesty, gossip, slander, profanity and vulgarity. Let’s discuss four of them.

Gossip is practiced by those with a loose tongue, typically with little regard for fact-checking. Slander is always spoken, and it always involves a false claim that damages someone else.

Profanity and vulgarity have a more nuanced relationship. Oaths, blasphemy and irreverence are all profane, while that which is vulgar is merely low-class, coarse or corporeally explicit.

Consider the words of Jesus as translated in the New International Version of Matthew 5:21-22, when He said: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!” will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

According to Zondervan’s NIV exhaustive concordance, “raca” was a Greek derivative of an Aramaic word meaning “empty-headed,” and the English phrase “You fool!” was translated from the Greek word “moros,” which simply means “fool.”

So saying “raca” was a crime, according to the Law, but saying “moros” jeopardized the fate of one’s eternal soul by violating a higher Law. How, then, did Jesus justify his exclamation later in Matthew’s Gospel?

“You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?” asked Jesus in the NIV translation of Matthew 23:17. Translators selected “moros” as the best Greek equivalent for whom Jesus called “fools,” and they did so before the end of the very Gospel in which Jesus forbade such designations.

My point? Jesus did not blacklist words. The words themselves were not dirty – the words were vehicles for acts punishable by Law or by fire.

These passages remind me of multiple stories I’ve heard of evangelical congregations being shocked by their pastors’ use of vulgarity to solidify a sermon point. But what does this have to do with the enforcement of the IWU student handbook?

Certainly a Christian university will prohibit the use of profanity, but vulgarity is more difficult to define. Currently there seems to be an assumption among those in the IWU community that certain words are appropriate and certain words are not. I would suggest that we, instead, discuss why we collectively accept or reject certain vocabulary, as a diversity of opinions thrive regarding this very issue.

This column is part of a series:
The handbook: an introduction
The handbook: intellectual property
The handbook: free speech

The past week marks a major shift in the American debate over intellectual property rights and the enforcement of existing legal codes.

Online powerhouses roused dissent among commoners Jan. 18 by publicly protesting two bills proposed by the U.S. Congress. Wikipedia censored itself for 24 hours to draw attention to legislation that could, according to its opponents, “break the Internet.”

FBI agents acted on more than 20 search warrants Jan. 19 in nine different countries, seizing $50 million in assets and 18 domain names related to Megaupload.com, according to The New York Times, all in the name of enforcing existing copyright law.

“Anonymous” responded quickly. By day’s end, the clandestine collective of hacktivists took down major websites that supported the Megaupload raid, including sites belonging to the FBI, the Department of Justice and the copyright offices in the U.S. and France. Also affected were websites belonging to major proponents of the proposed anti-piracy legislation, including the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, Universal Music, Warner Music and others.

Congress then tabled the two controversial anti-piracy bills Jan. 20, two days after their proposals caused such a stir online.

But Congress isn’t the only legislative body with an interesting stance on intellectual property rights. Crack open a 2011/2012 student handbook, if you care to read a curious claim made by Indiana Wesleyan University officials regarding content produced by its students:

Page 30 states that “all information composed, transmitted, received or stored via the IWU computer system is also considered the property of Indiana Wesleyan University. As such, all stored information is subject to disclosure to management, law enforcement and other third parties, with or without notice to the student.”

This “Exclusive Property” clause in the handbook may appear to be an attempt to comply with lawful requests by law enforcement officers, whether they be enforcing state law or IWU codes of conduct. But if this were truly the only purpose served by the rule, it would merely restate the “Technology Equipment” clause a page earlier, which reads:

“Technology equipment provided by the University is the property of IWU, and as such IWU retains the right to remove, reallocate, or change equipment at its discretion. No information residing on any computer hardware owned by IWU should be considered private and therefore is subject to review by University staff.”

This “Technology Equipment” clause is completely acceptable, but the “Exclusive Property” clause makes the dubious claim that everything I transmit, using IWU’s technological equipment, belongs to the school.

I spent a semester at the L.A. Film Studies Center, a program offered by the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. For insurance reasons, all films produced by LAFSC students belong to the center, which I was required to list as the “production company” for each of the three films I produced.

Upon returning to IWU, I spoke with my academic adviser, Dr. Randall King, to ensure that the short film I produce for my senior project would remain my property alone. Instead, this rule could possibly indicate otherwise.

The question rests in how the interpreters of these two clauses choose to define “information.” Does the “Exclusive Property” clause claim intellectual rights to my film and anything I write, such as this column? Or does the term “information” apply solely to the lingering files archived by the IWU technology equipment? The former interpretation presents some terrifying legal ramifications, while the latter makes me ask what the “Exclusive Property” clause adds to the “Technology Equipment” clause a page earlier.

Policies like these are not unique to IWU. Other university policy books include similar clauses which are similar to rules commonly enforced in the corporate world. Regardless, this is a prime example of an ambiguously worded student handbook rule with potentially contentious implications.

This column is part of a series:
The handbook: an introduction
The handbook: intellectual property
The handbook: free speech