Holocaust Deniers and White Supremacists Make Oregon Students "Feel" "Unsafe"
The University of Oregon is considering not allowing the Pacifica Forum to meet in the student union. That group, to be fair, hosts all manner of speakers, not just "legitimate historians" who don't believe the Holocaust happened. And then there's this.
The young woman, a University of Oregon student who would only give her name as Katie, couldn’t take it anymore. She had to come forward, had to say something. To his face.
“This is not acceptable!” she said more than once to Valdas Anelauskas, tears streaming down her face. “You’re making me feel unsafe.”
She came all the way from the back of the room, the Walnut Room at the UO’s Erb Memorial Union, Friday during the latest Pacifica Forum talk.
She said she had to tell Anelauskas, a Lithuanian native who has described himself as a “white separatist and racialist,” just what she thought of a remark he admits to making during a talk last summer about the late radical feminist and writer, Andrea Dworkin.
Anelauskas had said Dworkin, known for her views that pornography can lead to violence against women, was “too ugly to rape.”
The young woman was joined by several others in Friday’s crowd, most who came to protest the Pacifica Forum, and huddled with her to support her after Anelauskas tried to comfort her by saying, “No, you’re not ugly.”
I was almost happy to discover this was about loony racists rather than another fucking boring chapter in the never ending Pacifica Radio story.
Abhorrent as their views might be, you can't short-circuit the first amendment because some douche thinks it's funny to make rape jokes. You might change the rules so that only "official" student groups with faculty sponsors can use the Union, but nothing targeted against this particular bunch of assholes would be defensible.
I would argue that you can – on a University (albeit a state one) – deny outside groups (outside) the right to use facilities if they make your students feel unsafe and frankly, promote views which fly in the face of academic credulity.
I'm not speaking legally, I am the first to defend the rights of those who hate me (gay, Jewish) to say whatever the fuck they want, but I think they University has the right to prevent them from using their property.
Well, it isn't technically an outside group, because of the faculty connection — the group was founded by a retired prof. When that guy kicks the bucket, there won't be anything stopping the university from asking the group to find another meeting place, but for the time being that gives them an in.
The only other issue I have with what you're saying is that making someone "feel unsafe" is a strong enough test to take action against a group. Having a discussion group (albeit one motivated by bigotry and populated by undoubtedly creepy dudes!) isn't actually threatening anyone's safety. People can "feel unsafe" for any number of stupid reasons, including the bigotry that caused this Pacifica group to form in the first place.
So I totally agree that issues of campus safety trump the public interests of outsiders — "No, homeless man, you cannot sleep in the dorm lobby" — but I'm not sure you can actually apply that reasoning in this situation.
When a person who wants to come on to your campus calls one of the students 'too ugly to rape' I think you can.
I'm going to assume he wasn't a history teacher.
That wasn't a student, it was a "late radical feminist and writer."
Apologies, I found that part actually a little disjointed. I thought I had it. Coffee.
I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm right either, but the line of public and private property that Universities straddle (heh) makes this a thorny issue.
Holocaust Denial actually doesn't even really offend me, except intellectually, because it's so fucking laughable.
No, you're right, this is a really tangled issue! The position of universities, especially on safety issues, is pretty shifty. Legally their students are adults, right? But they're still students, and different parents have wildly different expectations for how the school will treat them.
Also: college students have a predilection to get themselves into really fucking stupid and dangerous situations.
So, so true.
The First Amendment has nothing to do with it. I tire of people throwing that around without knowing what it means.
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Um, actually, it has quite a lot to do with it. And I'll thank you for not insulting my intelligence in the future?
The first amendment guard both freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. That second one applies particularly to assemblies whose speech state agencies (in this case, the university) find distasteful.
The retired prof connection is tenuous at best, and my point is that there's no one stopping them from meeting somewhere else. I'm no lawyer, but I think they're going to have to prove that not being able to meet on campus is a severely limiting factor. That they can't meet anywhere else or that access to the campus is somehow vital to the speech. There's nothing about the description of the group that says to me they can't just meet anywhere with 4 walls and a roof. People on the left and right have a tendency to think that the free speech is some sort of right to convenience, which it isn't.
Since you ended your little request with a question mark instead of a period, I'm going to say no.
Janine, this is basically what I was trying to say.
It isn't a right to convenience, but it is a right to equal treatment. You don't get to "abridge" — that's the exact word — someone's right to speak or assemble on the grounds that he's an asshat.
The retired prof connection is less tenuous than you think. A retired professor I know runs frequent conferences that bring in teachers from other institutions and are a pretty major undertaking. Limiting the access of emeritus faculty to facilities would compromise a lot more than just bigot hoe-downs.
"No" as in you won't stop insulting my intelligence? Charming.
Speaking of free speech, Valdas may need a few new lines to use on chicks.
He could later be heard mumbling, "Andrea Dworkin had a really nice smile, actually."
Just wait till he releases his 2010 University of Oregon most rapeable list. This list is meant in the most flattering way possible, of course.
I'm sure someone with different views than you on dead feminists does make these terribly sheltered OREGONIAN liberals (the most self-satisfied kind of all) feel "unsafe." Send them to thought jail, before they start saying Susan Sontag's hair looks like JWowWow's!
Yeah, because when someone's making you feel "unsafe," you "come forward" "all the way from the back of the room" and announce it "to his face." Disingenuous little hysteric.
That said, if you read the whole article, the group in question does sound as repellent as it could be. The involved parties may deserve each other.
That was actually a reaction I had. I'm sure they're both spewing a bunch of uninformed rhetoric and are a perfect coupling.
Those women! Getting upset over a little hate speech and ruining the fun for everyone. Thankfully a decent shag will settle her down; poor thing probably haven't been laid for years with that attitude. Since she's not completely ugly it won't be a chore.
Jesus.