The Pacifica Forum controversy shows no sign of slowing anytime soon as the University and surrounding community wades further into the debate.
University President Richard Lariviere briefly addressed the issue in a speech he gave at Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in the Hult Center, saying he was “intensely proud of the students and the community and the way they stood up to that hateful speech.”
Also, the ASUO Senate is expected to vote on a resolution against the Forum at tonight’s meeting. University Senate President Nathan Tublitz said that an anti-Pacifica Forum resolution had yet to be introduced to the University Senate, but that he wouldn’t be surprised if one came up soon.
The Facebook group “U of O students and community members against the Pacifica Forum” had 1,927 members, as of press time.
The controversy has also stirred discussion throughout the University and the city of Eugene at large about the First Amendment and what constitutes acceptable speech.
The United States has some of the most liberal free speech laws in the world, specifically when it comes to hate speech. Under the Supreme Court’s current interpretation, established in Brandenburg v. Ohio, hate speech is in almost all cases protected, no matter how hateful or virulent, unless it is meant to incite imminent lawless action.
That case was decided in 1969 and has not been significantly challenged since. The Supreme Court and lower courts have also looked unfavorably on college speech codes banning hate speech, striking many of them down over the years.
“The United States is in many ways an outlier when it comes to freedom of speech and freedom of expression,” journalism professor Kyu Ho Youm said. “It’s rather unusual, if
not unique.”
Youm is the Jonathan Marshall First Amendment Chair of the School of Journalism and Communication. He called the Pacifica Forum flap a “wonderful, teachable moment” because it caused students and others to be proactive and confront the Forum.
However, he warned against banning or otherwise censoring such speech.
“Hate speech is something we should guard against,” Youm said, “but the best way to guard against it is with more speech, rather than less.”
However, others believe sometimes more than just speech is necessary. The Black Tea Society, an ad hoc anti-fascist group that was part of Friday’s Pacifica Forum protest, said actively disrupting the Forum’s activity was justified.
“The problem is that fascist propaganda leads to fascist action,” the group said in an e-mail. “If we wait until we are being loaded onto the trains to begin to fight back it will already be too late. We challenge these so-called ‘free speech’ advocates to show us the line, show us the threshold after which it becomes OK under their philosophy to fight back.”
A panel of University and community members is scheduled to discuss the Pacifica Forum on Jan. 26. The event, titled “Hate Speech vs. Free Speech,” tentatively includes speakers from the Community Alliance of Lane County, ASUO President Emma Kallaway and a writer from the Student Insurgent magazine, among others.
But if the controversy has mobilized the community, it has just as certainly emboldened the Pacifica Forum, which shows no sign of backing down. The Forum has scheduled a presentation by Billy Rojas titled “Neo-Communism and the Anti-Hate Task Force.” It will be held Friday at 3 p.m. in the EMU Walnut Room.
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ASUO to prepare response to Pacifica
Daily Emerald
January 19, 2010
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