The now-infamous “”Jizzlam: an entertainment magazine for the Islamic man”” issue of The Koala has sparked intense argument on the boundaries of free speech. The publication did more than merely revive a hackneyed debate about freedom of speech, however; it recently grew into front-page news involving protests, anger and even unconfirmed reports of violence.
Recent events, like the Jan. 22 protest on Library Walk, therefore require not only a focus on the substance of the debate, but also an examination of the methods employed and an evaluation of their consequences and effectiveness. The possibility of student council and administration involvement in a Koala-shredding protest is inappropriate.
Aside from protest by student groups, administrative inquiries, A.S. Council rebuke and off-campus criticism, there were also reports of violent response to the “”Jizzlam”” edition of the Koala. Accusations that some Koala staff members were physically assaulted for their roles in the controversial piece should have been a warning that the debate was getting out of hand.
Tempers seemed to calm, but the fall quarter re-distribution of the controversial “”Jizzlam”” issue and the Jan. 22 actions on Library Walk by a group of Thurgood Marshall College students have revived the debate. Activities included petition-gathering to protest forms of hate speech like the Koala and the shredding of its newly distributed issues.
Furthermore, it appears that the protests contained some fingerprints of the Thurgood Marshall College Student Council. TMCSC Chair Travis Silva explicitly denies allegations that TMCSC was involved, stating that “”TMCSC did not take a stance supporting or disapproving the actions,”” and several students who were directly involved in running the event reaffirmed Silva’s statement.
However, minutes from recent TMCSC meetings included minor references to the anti-hate speech events and discussions about the Koala. Additionally, the TMCSC Yahoo! group, to which only formal members of the student council are admitted, was used as a medium of informational and logistical exchange for planning the anti-hate speech events. Furthermore, the students involved were forewarned on the Yahoo! Group ó which can be found at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TMCSC ó by Marshall Dean of Student Affairs Ashanti Houston Hands that the new issue of the Koala would be postponed an additional day.
Though it is not clear how crucial of a role Hands and the TMCSC had in the ordeal, the above examples, as a whole, show that the anti-hate speech affair on Library Walk could have been handled more properly. It is possible that the assistance offered by Hands and Silva was merely to help new students unfamiliar with the procedures of organizing such events. But even if that is the case, they did not go to the appropriate lengths to make the independence of their roles clear (by, for instance, using other means of communication). Instead, there floats a cloud of suspicion over the operation and handling of the event.
Students involved did go to extreme lengths to provide themselves with privately-owned equipment and transportation for the Jan. 22 events, a commendable effort. However, the TMCSC overstepped its boundaries when it explicitly planned its anti-hate speech activities in detail over the Yahoo! Group message boards. Although the participants claim that their actions were independent and not council-sanctioned, they did not go far enough in detaching their private actions from those of a college student council whose role should be clearly demarcated from the shredding of campus publications.
Moreover, the methods employed in the anti-hate speech event on Library Walk also raised questions as to their appropriateness and effectiveness. Shredding campus publications is definitely a step beyond petition-gathering. Furthermore, it provoked vitriolic verbal retaliation from several Koala members, further worsening the situation as tensions rose.
In the end, both sides were responsible for making a bad situation worse: the Marshall students for so coarsely reviving the issue with their shredder, and the Koala staff for responding with provocations that escalated the conflict.
Although silence is by no means the answer to this ongoing debate on hate speech, there is a need for a certain level of maturity and temper if this dispute is to evolve into any meaningful exchange of ideas. Otherwise the debate will, rather than solve any problems, just cause more of them, displayed appropriately in the Guardian photo (page 3, Jan. 26 issue) that showed two individuals fighting and screaming during the paper shredding. In fact, it was a recurring scenario that at one point in the day escalated to near violence.
Did the ends justify the means? If anything, the events of Jan. 22 increased the popularity of the Koala. Put simply, the anti-hate speech organizers should have known their actions would merely provoke Koala staff, increase publicity and spark more interest in the publication. The marginal success of the event (100 people signed a petition out of the 5,000 who picked up a Koala that day), casts further doubt as to whether the damages done by the event outweighed the gains.
Actions on-campus organizations choose to take on this issue in the future should be weighed by an evaluation of their expected effects and consequences.
Regardless of what one believes in the debate over free speech, it is difficult to justify the methods of the anti-hate speech advocates.
