Iowa Senator Introduces Just The Whiniest Bill About The Stanford Band

The notoriously “edgy” Stanford marching band performed a skit full of dumb hick stereotypes during halftime of Stanford’s 45-16 thwacking of Iowa in the Rose Bowl. Despite the fact that the skit wasn’t particularly good, funny, or unexpected, everybody lost their goddamn minds. Iowa fans got mad, Rose Bowl officials got mad, and now a deeply stupid Iowa State Senator has gotten mad.

Senator Mark Chelgren introduced a bill Wednesday that would prohibit “collaboration and cooperation” between Stanford and the University of Iowa, Iowa State, or Northern Iowa until Stanford apologizes for the band’s skit. Here is the relevant text:

The state board of regents shall prohibit any future collaboration or cooperation between the institutions of higher learning governed by the board and Stanford university, excluding sporting events, until Stanford university officials publicly apologize to Iowa’s citizens and to the university of Iowa for the unsporting behavior of the Leland Stanford junior university marching band.

This might be the smarmiest, wimpiest, pettiest, weakest, most pathetic thing I have ever heard of. Chelgren’s feelings were so hurt by the actions of a bunch of dumb 20-year-olds—that everybody knows and agrees are dumb—that he seeks to prevent Iowa’s institutions of higher learning from collaborating with one of the best universities in the world. And to top it off, Chelgren intends to punish the students and teachers of Iowa while letting university athletic teams continue to play against Stanford.

Chelgren may be a dumb hick, but unlike the Stanford band’s portrayal of the state, not everybody in Iowa is. Happily, the chair of the Iowa Senate’s Education agrees that weakening the state’s universities because a thin-skinned man is throwing a tantrum is the stupidest shit he’s ever seen. Via the Des Moines Register:

Sen. Herman Quirmbach, D-Ames, chairman of the Iowa Senate Education Committee, also indicated he has little interest in considering the proposal by Chelgren, who is seeking the Republican nomination to run for Congress in a district that includes the University of Iowa.

“Stanford University is one of the premier research universities in the world and for us to cut off contact with Stanford over something that happened on a football field I think sinks to a level that would be unworthy of our fine research institutions,” said Quirmbach, who is an economics professor at Iowa State University.

All hail Herman Quirmbach.

[ Des Moines Register]

Photo via Getty; h/t Scott

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