And then there is this statement which is totally misplaced. “The justification of academic freedom was that it would allow people to find out about what was true and do it through scientific inquiry.” As if good art requires some kind of hypothetical construct and empirical testing.

But you have to bracket offensiveness here and as if this truly met the intent of the program and the goals and objectives of the thesis. If she met those goals effectively, then the University has to stand by the project even if it is offensive to a lot of people. Just look at the later work of Dali or the photography of Joel-Peter Witkin. There is an entire philosophical premise for the grotesque in art on which I have published an article, so the project’s offensive and grotesque nature should not even be an issue here.