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Under the guise of "academic freedom" creationists are co-opting some old heroes of the fight to teach evolution in the classroom for their anti-science campaign.

Of course, in discussing how "offensive" the work may be to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, the point that the First Amendment protects precisely speech that some people find offensive was somehow missed. And the attorney claiming that the panel was biased against censorship - well, isn't the whole country supposed to be biased against censorship? As in: free speech is part of he constitution! Yes, there are restrictions - but he should know better, these restrictions do not apply to the ideas expressed in a work of art in a gallery - a college gallery to boot.

To the extent that a Wisconsin public university faculty member's emails are connected to a "government function," they may be covered under the state's Open Records law. But whether Cronon's emails meet this criterion is not presently clear. And even then, the court held in Schill that if the emails are in fact records, "then the court must undertake a balancing test to decide whether the statutory presumption favoring disclosure of public records is outweighed by any other public interest."