To the editor:

I am glad we have state Sen. Susan Wagle to save us from the filth taught at our universities. As a Kansas University student, I was forced to read Shakespeare’s “Othello.” Such filth. All that talk of “an old black ram tupping your white ewe” and “making the beast with two backs.” I sure hope Wagle expands her attack to the English department. KU also teaches the operas of composers like Verdi and Mozart. I can’t bear to repeat them here. All that infidelity, abduction, rape and prostitution is too much to bear. I sure hope Wagle cuts funding to the fine arts department.

I also took Dennis Dailey’s class. The only thing obscene about it was that it wasn’t required for graduation — from grade school. As Dailey said, “every human being is a sexual human being.” Dailey’s affirmative approach can help people become competent, healthy and happy sexual human beings. Wagle’s disavowing approach will leave people ignorant, guilt-ridden, repressed and dysfunctional sexual human beings.

Wagle said recently that universities could teach what they want, but that the taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for it. She couldn’t be more wrong. Unfunded programs vanish. Thus, withholding state funding based on course content is unabashed censorship. Wagle has forgotten what country she lives in. If she believes the government should choose what people can learn or how they can learn it, there are plenty of other countries where she would fit right in. I’ll help her pack.

David Reber,

Lawrence