New York City has shut down an exhibition by Brooklyn College “fine arts” graduate students which included a sculpted penis, a caged rat, and a sexually charged video featuring women dressed as nuns – on grounds that it was not “appropriate for families.” The exhibit – which the college’s provost, Roberta S. Matthews, says she and her fellow administrators will be “proud” to reinstall on campus – was set up in a building that is an honored World War II memorial. A great hoopla about artistic freedom will of course now ensue. But, in the city’s defense it should be noted that the “artiste” who created the rat display was always allowed into the memorial to feed her rat. How exhilarating to learn once again that our public higher education dollars are financing such lofty projects in our campuses’ advanced degree programs.