The ASUO Senate will vote next week on whether to ask the Pacifica Forum to leave campus entirely, after a forceful campaign by opponents of the controversial group.
The Pacifica Forum has drawn controversy over recent years by bringing speakers to campus who deny the existence of the Holocaust and espouse anti-Semitic views.
Starting this term, that controversy has spilled over into protests at the group’s meetings.
The Senate decided at its meeting Wednesday to put a resolution up to a vote, asking the group to leave. Students packed the EMU Walnut Room for the meeting, reaching the room’s occupancy limit. Students who couldn’t find space inside pried screens off the room’s windows and lined up outside to peer in. Most comments in support of the resolution drew raucous applause from the audience.
Supporters said they were pushing the resolution because they believe the Pacifica Forum makes the University campus unsafe. They blamed the group’s rhetoric for three recent racially motivated attacks in Eugene. Some said the group’s presence in the EMU, which also houses multicultural student unions and support groups for women, makes them fear racism and sexual abuse in the building.
The resolution originally aimed to simply remove the group from the EMU, but after University officials told the Senate they had already arranged to keep the Forum out of the building for the rest of the year, senators opted to increase the scope of the resolution.
Proponents of the change said it would push the University to move the group off of campus entirely.
“This isn’t a simple issue of ‘Do I think this? Do I think that? Do I agree with their ideas?’” said anti-Forum activist Cimmeron Gillespie. “This is an issue of campus safety.”
However, the change spurred Senate Ombudsperson Alex McCafferty to say he would remove his name from the document.
“Right now, I am not comfortable asking any group, whatever the group may be, to be forced off state property,” McCafferty said. “They’re citizens and taxpayers of the United States.”
By the end of the debate, two senators had broken into tears and harsh words had been exchanged between those who thought restricting the group would violate the First Amendment.
“I don’t want to go to a university that cherry-picks what students can listen to,” Sen. Lyzi Diamond said.
“I don’t want to go to a university where I don’t feel safe,” replied Sen. Mercedes White Calf, who earlier called for lobbying to change the law to prohibit hate speech.
The Senate’s rules committee will now review the resolution for grammatical and technical issues before sending it back for approval at the Jan. 27 meeting. There, it will require the votes of two-thirds of senators to pass.
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