May 10, 2007

Conservative Magazine Harassed Black Students, Tufts U. Panel Says

A judicial committee at Tufts University ruled today that a conservative campus magazine had violated the university’s nondiscrimination policy by harassing black students in an anonymous parody of a Christmas carol titled “O Come All Ye Black Folk,” the Associated Press reported. Editors of the magazine, The Primary Source, defended the carol as not racist but as a satire of the university’s affirmative-action policies.

The Committee on Student Life, comprising faculty members and students, ordered the editors to make sure all future articles are signed. The committee also suggested that the student government consider this incident when deciding whether the magazine merited financial support. The AP quoted an editor as blaming “liberal activists” for the panel’s ruling, and saying that the magazine, Tufts’s “one, lone conservative voice,” would continue to publish even if it lost campus financing. —Andrew Mytelka

Comments

1. If you can’t make fun of racism, what’s left to make fun of? Hmm?

   — Anna Notherthing    May 11, 08:15 AM    #

2. They should’ve poked fun at all racism against all races instead of focusing on my race. Not cool.

   — Tufts Student    May 11, 08:46 AM    #

3. Conservatives often seem to obscure any intellectual arguments in their favor by descending into trashy “humor.” The Ann Coulters of the world do a grave disservice to civilized discourse among people of differing political viewpoints, as does this journal.

   — EB    May 11, 09:21 AM    #

4. I agree with comment #2. Don’t just single out the stereotypes of Black people. When trying to do a parody of Affirmative Action then you should do all the groups that have benefitted—particularly White Women.

   — Anonymous    May 11, 10:05 AM    #

5. Fortunately, we have free speech in this country; UNfortunately many don’t know what to do with this priviledge! I wonder would the paper be willing to do a parody of “legacy” students…the FIRST and MOST CONSISTENT form of affirmative action!

   — WJH    May 11, 10:11 AM    #

6. I think it is interesting that the Committee on Student Life ruled that the Primary Source harassed and created a hostile environment for the African American plaintiff and for the Muslim Students Association, but the press is only covering the racist Christmas carol and not the Islamophobic special feature.

   — SAW    May 11, 10:31 AM    #

7. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that satire is protected speech under the First Amendment. You may remember the case: Larry Flynt published an article about how Jerry Falwell had sex with his own mother in an outhouse. So for all of you academic types who have posted so far who think that students leave their FIrst Amendment rights at the edge of the campus, you make me tired. You are already squabbling over which groups should or should not be satirized. The sad fact in this case is that the “lone conservative voice” is being chilled on a liberal campus. That is a problem of enormous proportions, but you are too blind to see it. Shame on all of you.

   — Patricia A. Parke    May 11, 10:50 AM    #

8. The first posting asks what is left if we can’t make fun of racism. The point of the protest against racial attacks such as the one in this student newspaper is that the use of humor is a smokescreen; a thinly veiled code language. Humor provides plausible deniability to those who employ it so that, as in this case, the writers can air their racist views while claiming at the same time that they are just kidding. This is not a first amendment issue so much as it is an issue of protecting students against violent harassment. Since when have we as a society decided that the right to free speech trumps the right of individuals to live their lives without harassment and degradation? This is not an issue of muting the “lone conservative voice,” as another comment suggests, but is rather a case of protecting the rights of people who have been historically, systematically, and visciously subjected to this kind of demeaning racist garbage. Is conservatism truly about the reclamation of “values” and the promotion of smaller government, or is it about promoting the rights of racists to air their views in public, presumably through a media that receives money from student fees? The conservatism that is implied in several of the posts is particularly chilling to me. Welcome, Ann Coulter.

   — James G Carroll    May 11, 11:28 AM    #

9. There is a First Amendment and the students have a right to free speech, even if it is an offensive and stupid parody. But the First Amendment gives you the right of free speech. It does not protect you from the consequences that come from what you say. The “lone conservative voice” can publish a racist parody of a Christmas carol if they want to. If the consequences are that the university decides university funds will no longer be used to support the publication of racist parodies, so be it. The conservative students still have the freedom to say what they want. Just not in a university sanctioned venue. If a liberal group stepped over the line of offensiveness, they should suffer the same consequences.

   — ARW    May 11, 11:52 AM    #

10. Is it funny if you’re one of the “black folk?” No, it’s just mean. Free speech can be mean, and that’s the sad part.

    — Phil    May 11, 12:31 PM    #

11. Mr. Carroll in comment 8 resorts to the tired old saw of linking satire with “violent harassment,” and he falls back on the shopworn cliche of “people who have been historically, systematically, and visciously subjected to this kind of demeaning racist garbage.” According to Mr. Carroll’s apparent interpretation of the First Amendment, any student who can claim past grievances automatically gets to go through life without ever having his or her beliefs challenged or feelings hurt. I sincerely hope that Mr. Carroll is not in a position of authority on a college campus; he is the perfect representation of all that is wrong with victimology totalitarians.

    — J. Ward    May 11, 01:04 PM    #

12. The tactics used by persons who breed and feed on the dynamics of aversive, discriminatory racism toward Afrimericans first avoid, or void within themselves the fact that America is synonymous with whiteness and the structure of America is designed to give whites automatic affirmative action.
    Secondly, the white racist has different degrees and methods of expression, and one is to hide behind humor. It’s a medium where one can express their racist bent with an arrogance they think of humor as giving the race hate neutrality, not realizing the act itself, no matter what the medium, fails to hide the racism they think is hidden.
    Lastly, as I experience, and study more and more racism, especially from whites who find themselves in my presence who are intellectually inferior, I find they all suffer from a cowardice due to an inability to provide a factual foundation for their racism.
    Most often it is a defense mechanism to shut out ones own feeling of inferiority

    — AFRIMERICAN    May 12, 06:14 AM    #

13. This is really a very simple matter. Do we have free speech or not? If we do, quit whining about what somebody says and counter their arguments or parody them in return for their parodies.

    If we don’t have free speech, then we have a lot more to worry about than undergraduates constructing allegedly racist parodies.

    — Dana    May 17, 12:39 PM    #

14. Whatever happened to the belief that we may not like what someone says, but we must defend to the death the right of people to speak freely….. those who are so loud about censoring someone who offends their sense of whatever, soon may, to their horror, find that their humor and dogmatic opinions too will be censored because yet another minority group despises their voices and opinions. The pendulum does swing – and the only defense against oppression is to defend to the death the rights of people to speak freely. Even when this speech seems at the moment to be offensive. It’s called FREE SPEECH, folks. But I suppose unless you have served in the military you would not understand w hat it is like to die for that right. Or that it even is a right.

    — freewriter    May 18, 03:07 PM    #

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