It seems that this year the oft-comical Student Senate saved the best for last. Or
perhaps the worst, depending on whether one values free speech on campus.
Wednesday night’s Senate meeting came to a premature ending when seven members walked out to protest a discussion about potential punishments for The Insurgent for publishing anti-Christianity articles and cartoons in its March issue. Some senators who walked out said the talk was unconstitutional, whereas senators who remained blasted by those who left, saying they stifled free speech by refusing to discuss the matter. After the walkout, the Executive finance coordinator and an EMU board member resigned with mere hours remaining before their terms in office expired.
Foremost, walking out of a Senate meeting is an immature act that signals a failure of leadership. However, as we have repeatedly stated, we adamantly support the right of student publications, including those funded by incidental fees, to publish without censorship by the administration or by overzealous student leaders. Yet we also recognize that some speech, such as the cartoons of Jesus with an erection, provokes greater harm than discussion in this marketplace of ideas.
Former Senator Dallas Brown proposed the sanctions in an e-mail sent Tuesday in which he said, “Let’s go out with a bang.”
Apparently that bang was intended to represent a gunshot to the head of student free speech on campus because his resolution to condemn the publication demands a formal apology from The Insurgent and suggests freezing the amount of money used to publish the March issue if The Insurgent does not apologize.
His flawed logic hinges on the possibility that the issue may “have resulted in the potential loss of University … Alumni donations, ticket sales to athletic events and enrollment,” that the issue “offended a significant number of individuals,” that the content was “pornographic, and distributed in public places,” “designed to offend and not educate” and “malicious and vulgar,” he wrote in the resolution attached to Tuesday’s e-mail.
Although the point of student government is to represent students’ interests, and many students were undoubtedly rightly offended by the publication, people taking offense to material should not be a reason to censor speech.
Nor should reduced ticket sales to athletic events, even though that might be a result of the publication.
Brown’s charge that the cartoons are pornographic is also baseless because pornography consists of graphic sexual images designed for lustful purposes. Further, obscenity is protected in Oregon for consenting adults because of a 1987 law. Brown argues that The Insurgent is left in public places where children will find it, but in truth it is primarily distributed to campus and prison locations where children aren’t likely to pick up a copy and be warped for life.
The walkout and ensuing resignations were the perfect end to a year of Senate proceedings that were marked by absences, seat vacancies, rule violations and discussion of irrelevant and self-aggrandizing issues. Here’s our advice to Senate’s new members: read the Green Tape Notebook and follow its guidelines, don’t propose resolutions about international politics and keep your hands off of student publications.