An underreported fact: In order to maintain a safe environment at the Pacifica Forum meetings held in January, DPS suppressed protest.
For example, on Jan. 15, campus security told protestors they could not bring in picket signs or stand up during the presentation. This interrupted the coordinated intentions of the protestors, who had planned to stand and turn in silence whenever Pacifica presenters Billy Rojas and Jimmy Marr said something bigoted in their debate.
The result was a lot of frustration and yelling. Protestors booed Marr off stage; Marr sieg heiled in the face of a rabbi. It was bad press for somebody — for whom depends on who you ask.
Our right to free speech is as perplexing as it is important. In the context of public protest, infringing on free movement and expression for the sake of public safety is as common as potatoes. Though a first-year law student could likely explain the legal difference between banning picket signs in a certain building and banning an organization of provocateurs from campus, I’ve gathered that this distinction is arbitrary to the protestor who feels targeted for his or her vocal dissent.
When I spoke with Pacifica presenter Rojas, he had no qualms admitting the hateful nature of recent Pacifica Forum presentations. I asked him if Marr’s Dec. 11 presentation, which featured a video of Marr marching with National Socialist Movement white supremacists, crossed the line between free speech and hate speech. “Oh, yeah,” Rojas replied.
Rojas, who personally views Marr’s politics as “despicable,” denies that Marr represents the entire group. The membership of Pacifica is an indefinable “whoever shows up,” and Marr is just one of a handful who have shown up over the last few years.
Yet, besides Rojas, who stated “I object” as Marr sieg heiled with members of the audience, there was no apparent opposition to the Dec. 11 presentation from the nebulous membership of the forum. Still, Rojas “expected better” of the January protestors who came en masse to condemn Marr’s hate speech.
I pressed Rojas: “How should students have responded to the presentation on Dec. 11?”
“That’s a good question,” he said, pausing. “Maybe the first protest was fair, but the ones after … Let’s talk person to person and try to be decent about it.” Of course, the events that transpired on those first two Fridays of winter term did little to inspire decency in the protestors.
Many people I love and respect have said the Pacifica Forum debate is not about free speech, but about the safety of the student body. I disagree; free speech and safety are indelibly linked.
If students feel that showing their face at a public forum will put them in danger, or that they will be targeted because they are of a different race, religion or sexual orientation than the majority of the student body, the University has not succeeded in nurturing freedom of expression on our campus.
If the administration forces the Pacifica Forum off campus because it poses a legitimate threat to the safety of students on campus, it will affect the extent to which outside organizations can express free speech on campus in the future.
I stand behind both of these statements, though after writing them I see that, each alone, they demand different conclusions.
Which is why I am going to waffle and ask instead that everyone involved consider the gravity of the situation. Over the weekend, as we all know, somebody spray-painted a swastika on the carpet of the LGBTQA office in the EMU. An alarming number of students and community members have told the ASUO about hate they have experienced on our campus and in our town — most notably from a black student who said she had never experienced racism before she moved to Eugene and someone yelled a racial slur at her from a passing car on Agate Street.
My worst fear in this whole hullabaloo is not that one side will win or lose, but that the poignant moments over the last few weeks will become mere debate points. The coverage that has spread in tangents from the original events has demonstrated the incredible power of spin. I’m no longer certain that kicking out Pacifica is a sufficient or appropriate bandage for this wound, but it’s clear that the ASUO needs to respond with a unified, compassionate voice for those who feel threatened on our campus.
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