I am a student living in the dorms, so word got to me pretty quickly about the Pacifica Forum. I was shocked, to say the least, and I wanted to learn more about it. I went to one protest and my mind was immediately made up — I had to take action.
Protesting this forum is not an issue of the First Amendment because that only applies to governments silencing people. This is an issue of community responsibility and bystander intervention. As human beings, we have a responsibility to confront racism, sexism, “faithism” and homophobia in our community. We need to demonstrate to the Forum the seriousness of their rape threats and tell them that violence against women is not a joke — not when one in four women will be sexually assaulted while in college. We cannot allow violence, ignorance and intolerance to be normalized.
This is not an issue of free speech (which is different than the First Amendment freedom of speech addressed above), this is an issue of safety, which trumps any sort of argument for free speech every time. Students have been harassed by Forum members. Devon Schlotterbeck (a University sophomore) has had members search out her personal profile on Facebook to harass her; she’s had blogs posted with her full name on Pacifica’s Web site. The ASUO President has had creepy e-mails sent to her with pictures and information about her. At the protest on Jan. 15, a white supremacist walked up to a female protester and threatened her by saying, “You women better watch out because you’re all weak. You better not go out at night anymore.” The list goes on — and it demonstrates a disturbing turn of events. The Forum isn’t simply disagreeing with the protesters’ perspectives, they aren’t arguing against our protesting, but they have now begun to target individuals.
Recent articles about the Forum have made it sound like we’ve won the fight to remove them from the EMU. Many people didn’t attend the last protest because they thought it had been cancelled for that reason. But they haven’t actually been permanently moved. The administration chose to move them from the EMU to accommodate the large number of protesters, but without the protesters, they could end up right back in the EMU. And once the administration’s policy goes into effect in the coming weeks, all that will change is that when the Forum books its room in the EMU, they’ll have to pay for it and for any police presence that is needed due to the large number of protesters. So once again, our job isn’t done yet!
We still have to come protest in large enough numbers for a police presence to be necessary so we can bankrupt the Forum and force them off campus. If it remains on campus, it will continue to put students at risk. We need to support the individuals and communities of people who are being harassed, threatened and attacked by fighting for the safety of us all. Free speech only goes so far — it crosses the line when safety becomes an issue. It’s time to take back our campus and our safety, and it’s time for bystander intervention and community responsibility from all of us.
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