Beach Boys Song Too Sexually Offensive for 2016 College Campus

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You can’t make this stuff up. It’s like The Onion owns the news these days. 

Before they took a turn toward the psychedelic in the mid-1960s, the Beach Boys were about as uncontroversial as you could get in American pop music. But what was acceptable for teenyboppers in the early ’60s may be too sexually taboo for today’s college campuses. University of Kentucky (UK) journalism professor Buck Ryan claims he was sanctioned for singing the Beach Boys’ 1965 single “California Girls” while in his official capacity as a UK representative. The university’s Office of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity found Ryan violated federal Title IX guidelines against sex-based discrimination and harassment by using “language of a sexual nature.”

“If my case is any indication, then everyone concerned about discrimination and sexual harassment should be alarmed,” wrote Ryan in a letter to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Ryan also pointed out that he has never, in a teaching career spanning more than 30 years, “faced a complaint of sexual misconduct from a student.”

Ryan, a tenured associate professor with an impressive resume—including an array of international awards, eight years as director of the UK School of Journalism and Telecommunications (from 1994 to 2002), and the 2003 recipient of UK’s Provost’s Award for Outstanding Teaching—said he was reported to Title IX officials for conduct that occurred while he was a visiting professor at China’s Jilin University. Ryan claims it was singing the Beach Boys song at a closing ceremony that got him reported by fellow UK faculty on the trip.

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