Muscatine

Had another one of those “Are you kidding me?’’ moments again this week.

It came after reading that a Minnesota-based nonprofit advocacy organization called Gender Justice suggested it is illegal to have pink paint on the locker room walls at Kinnick Stadium.

Seriously. This isn’t some sort of belated April Fool’s thing.

The co-founders of Gender Justice stated at the Iowa Governors Conference last week that the pink locker room walls at Kinnick are “sexist’’ and “humiliating’’ to visiting players and as such, in violation of their human rights.

“I conclude that the tradition is not just wrong, it’s illegal,” Gender Justice co-founder Jill Gaulding said.

While the pink walls potentially could be annoying to anyone with a sense of taste, there never was any intent to insult anyone, as the Gender Justice folks allege.

Iowa coach Hayden Fry, who had a psychology degree from Baylor, came up with this idea more than 30 years ago as a way to subconsciously soothe the savage beast of visiting players. He hoped the color scheme would have a calming effect on visitors and might subtly make them a bit more passive when they trotted onto the field at Kinnick.

It’s gamesmanship, pure and simple, and the last time we checked there was nothing illegal about that. It’s really hard to imagine that Purdue or Michigan State is going to sue Iowa after losing a game at Kinnick because the décor offended their sensibilities.

There also is no evidence that this ploy ever has had any impact on what happens on the field although it occasionally has gotten inside the head of opponents. When Michigan coach Bo Schembechler first saw the pink walls, he sent his team managers scurrying around Iowa City to find enough butcher paper to cover them up.

In any case, it really seems as though there are far more pressing gender-related issues that this organization could be tackling.