Yeah, like nobody here knows that the Insurgent is a waste of money and effort. It’s an enjoyable read though, and Graf makes the case well. If only he had mentioned the nekkid boobies in the latest issue, we could have had O’Reilly back for a rerun. Meanwhile, over in the ODE comment section, Jethro Higgins has discovered that the Insurgent only does this stuff for the attention. Tune in next week, when Higgins realizes he’s been giving them exactly what they want: legitimation of the tactics of crying oppression, and of course, the attention. I swear to god, there must be something hallucinogenic in that grass pollen, because this campus goes insane every spring.

Well, apparently we got it wrong. According to an angry collective  member, The Insurgent did not reprint the “Aroused Jesus” Issue, but are merely redistributing original issues. Furthermore, the fourth issue of the Insurgent has come out today, and it is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, as the poet said.

Sorry Insurgents, y’all aren’t quite as big of a joke as we thought. Although now my new collection of “Aroused Jesus” issues will fetch even more on ebay, because they are originals, and we also have a new issue to SPEW the hell out of. Oh yes, and there’s even something for the poor, downtrodden campus christians too… page 21 has a picture of a topless young lady from burning man. Oh the oppression! Defund NOW!

The rumors are true. The Student Insurgent must have been feeling a little down for only printing 3 issues this year (incidentally, they get almost $5,000 a year more than us), and have decided to cheer themselves up by reprinting last years infamous “Aroused Jesus” issue. That’s right, the hand-drawn nudity that inspired months of hand-wringing and fist shaking by the likes of Bill Donahue, Bill O’Reilly, Dallas Brown, and Students Of Faith is back in all of its crisp, bright, newly-printed glory. I guess things were just getting too boring, and putting out a new issue was just too much work. Oh well, bring on the caps-lock evangelists, the blowhard pundits and the Christians-as-victims crowd… just, please, everybody read this first.

***UPDATE***

As Sean mentioned, Jethro Higgins has written a letter to the editor over at the ODE, which should be available here. Unfortunately, the ODE has a page and a header for it, but the piece itself is not yet online. Maybe someone’s scared of tripping Bill Donahue’s RSS filter, which scours the web hourly for content with the words “aroused” and “Jesus.” We’d be scared too.

The Committee of Three (ASUO President Jared Axelrod, ASUO Multicultural Advocate Lorena Landeros, and Student Senator Erica Anderson) has heard and rejected the Students of Faith’s appeal of David Goward’s original decision. Appropriately enough, the Committee points out that it cannot evaluate the Insurgent’s compliance with the Student Conduct Code and soundly rejects the claim that student groups themselves must remain viewpoint neutral. A good, fairly well-written decision. (63k .pdf)

UPDATE: I should have pointed out that the Students of Faith appeal (100k .pdf) essentially attempted to attack the Insurgent on different grounds than in their original grievance. To the Committee of Three’s credit, they pointed this out and decided to slap the appeal down anyway.

I thought I should clarify a comment attributed to me in a Daily Emerald article about the Insurgent Town Hall forum.

Several Christian students said The Insurgent’s publication was an attack on Christianity that misinformed readers with false ideas.

“It’s not OK to pay people to attack us viciously,” music major Jethro Higgins said. If it’s not already against the law, “it should be,” he said.

Spencer told Higgins it’s OK to make fun of and offend people.

I told Higgins that it was legal to make fun of and offend people under the Constitution. One of the points I wish I had gotten across at the forum is that something can be idiotic, offensive, blasphemous, or whatever other negative you want to call it while still being legal.

The Students of Faith are making a tactical error by asking the University administration and ASUO to censure the Insurgent by forcing them to make an apology since, by law, that is something the two bodies legally cannot do. (Oh, and there’s something which is lost on various people: censure is a different word than censor.) Instead, as I tried to point out at the meeting, Students of Faith should be arguing that noone should have to pay for any sort of publication on campus, whether it be the Insurgent, the Voice, the Commentator, or the Emerald. The current system forces students to sponsor speech which they disagree with and in my opinion, this is a terrible position to be put in. But the bare fact is that this is an all or nothing proposition, and most people on campus seem to prefer the “all” option. And if that’s how it’s going to be, then I’d love to see a Students of Faith publication. Spew can always use more contributors.

Newly minted ASUO Outreach Coordinator Mike Filippelli announced yesterday that there will be a townhall-style meeting to discuss the Insurgent’s Aroused Jesus issue on Thursday June 1st at 5:30 PM in Columbia 150. I think I’m going to do whatever I can to not be there.

UPDATE: Welp, despite my previous statements I’ve signed up to be on the panel. This was probably a very stupid move on my part, but oh well.

UPDATE x2: Bumping to the top because if it’s just me and Brett Rowlett chatting about sports and hairstyles I’m going to be disappointed (although I suppose he may have superb taste in both.) Also, I’m putting the over/under on total audience members at 35, which may be generous to the under.

Student Senator Dallas Brown has a guest commentary in today’s Emerald decrying the walk out his fellow senators staged. In it, Brown claims that fellow Senator Wally Hicks created a resolution which “makes significant arguments regarding a question that ultimately encompasses the entire purpose of student government.” That question being, of course, whether or not student government can punish a student publication for its content. A .pdf copy of that resolution, which was to be introduced at the 5/24 meeting but was tabled since it was submitted late, can be found here. Here’s an excerpt:

At no point has the Court indicated that to remain “viewpoint neutral” the ASUO is compelled to fund any and all funding requests that come before it. Therefore the Court has permitted the ASUO to exercise some kind of standard to reject requests for funding or to reconsider its prior awards. The Rosenburger Court provides guidance that the requesting program must contribute to the mission and goals of the university. The inference therefore is that the body which governs the incidental fee (the ASUO) has the discretion to decide whether the level of a group’s contribution is sufficient to warrant the award of incidental dollars.

Southworth also states, “it is not for the Court to say what is or is not germane to the ideas being pursued in an institution of higher learning.” Southworth, at 232. The Court has therefore left the question of what is germane to the university’s mission and goals to be decided by the school itself. By extension the ASUO therefore retains that discretion through its mandate to govern the incidental fee.

To summarize our position, the Supreme Court’s requirement of “viewpoint neutrality” permits the ASUO to de-fund the Insurgent if it judges that the group does not contribute to the mission and goals of the university.

This is a rather limited interpretation of Southworth, and it’s surprising that someone as bright as Hicks wouldn’t see that this would essentially eliminate the meaning of the term “viewpoint neutrality” thanks to two loopholes:

1. The mission and goals of a University (or student government) can be interpreted in an extremely liberal fashion. If a student senate was filled with religious conservatives, for instance, what would stop them from decreeing that a publication geared towards homosexuals did not help the “physical and cultural development” of that university’s students? And anyway, this University’s own mission statement says that one of its guiding principles is “the conviction that freedom of thought and expression is the bedrock principle on which university activity is based.” That is hardly a ringing endorsement of censorship.
2. It also seems that Hicks attempts to separate the University administration from the ASUO, thereby empowering student government in an area which Southworth explicitly says the University administration must remain neutral. The ASUO and University administration cannot, however, be separated since the ASUO must have approval from UO President David Frohnmayer on final budgets and consult him if there are any major administrative or personnel modifications to student groups. As the Clark Document states:
   

   Responsibility for the administrative structure, personnel administration, and reporting relationships of major programs funded by student incidental fees resided within the University Administration. Any recommendations for realignment of major programs or other considerations of what constitutes optimal reporting relationships should be the outcome of proper consultation and wide support between student government and the University President. Such modification requires approval of the President.

   Consequently, any action the ASUO takes in regards to funding is, in effect, an action taken by the University administration. If the ASUO but not the University President were allowed to defund groups based on legal content, then the UO President would, in effect, be able to defund groups based on content since he or she could withhold approval of final budgets until the offending groups were disciplined. The two entities are simply too entwined to have their rights legally distinguished from each other in this case.

Despite this, Brown does make a very valid point near the end of his commentary:

The ultimate irony is that all but one of the dissenting senators approved of the agenda (my discussion item included), defending the right for us to present. Somewhere among the many recesses throughout the night, these senators were influenced to walk out of the meeting without even giving an excuse for their departure.

Indeed, the motion to add the debate (and not the resolution) to the agenda passed overwhelmingly, with Sara Hamilton (who later walked out) seconding it. And then a number of these same Senators decided to walk out rather than participate in the discussion they had voted for. What’s the deal?

From what I’ve heard, erstwhile student Senate opportunist member Dallas Brown will make an appearance on the O’Reilly Factor tomorrow. One should expect mucho bellyaching, handwringing, and harrumphing about the state of the Incidental Fee and the impotence of our so-called student leaders (except for Brown, who is clearly as potent as Long Dong Silver, or Boner Jesus for that matter). One should not expect Brown to make the observation that “you can be a honky and still be hung like a donkey,” which was my first impression upon seeing Don Goldman’s rather flattering portrayal of Jesus’ giant, pink manhood. That is, unless Brown is drunk or high.

Nevermind. I’m sure the program will be entertaining, as it should feature footage from last week’s dramatic student Senate debacle. My prediction: O’Reilly will call David Goward a coward six or seven million times. This is a very conservative estimate.

For those who missed the original telecast, Media Matters has posted it on its website, alongside its reaction to O’Reilly’s arguments. Early in its critique of O’Reilly, Media Matters gets it right: The Insurgent is not an “official” student newspaper, nor does the administration or any other governing body have control over its content. Truly well put, Media Matters. But a few paragraphs later, the argument turns to the ol’ rhetorical bodyslam: hypocrisy. To the good folks at Media Matters, Bill O’Reilly is a hypocrite because he is criticizing the Insurgent for their Jesus cartoons but not us for our reprinting of the Mohammed cartoons.

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Audio of the meeting can now be found here (60mb .mp3). I don’t have time to look through and find all of the relevant parts, but the Senate votes to have a five minute recess 2:15:00 in. It’s at this point that the walkout happens and things actually get interesting. A number of people from the Insurgent whine, two ASUO members symbolically resign, the David Goward/Dallas Brown pissing match continues unabated, Don Goldman performs in front of the cameras, Adam Walsh has a nice little speech, and Brown and Goldman chat. Wonderful stuff… although that really isn’t the case for the middle two hours of the meeting. The audio quality will likely be pretty rough for most of it.

I ran across this blog in comments, and it reminded me of something I’ve been meaning to mention.

Few would argue that Harvard and UC Berkeley are two of the most liberal institutions of higher learning in the land, and Mr. Frohnmayer is a graduate of both. His indoctrination into the left-wing mindset would have begun during his undergrad years at Harvard and then would have been reinforced during his law degree studies at the most liberal of American institutions; Berkeley.

Leaving aside for a moment the substance of this seemingly never-ending Insurgent debate, Frohnmayer really does have my sympathy here. It’s certainly true that he could have taken a more proactive stance in distancing himself from the Insurgent – but frankly, the idea that he was going to be held personally accountable for its content isn’t one that would have occurred to any of us a month ago. Statements like

Mr. Frohnmayer is, in every way, the type of far left wing person who loathes Christians, loathes conservatives and loathes those advocating family values.

show a perplexing disregard for the Frohn’s distinguished legal career, generally amiable disposition towards all and sundry, and, uh, the fact that he’s a Republican. While it would surely add to the hilarity if Frohnmayer were an Insurgent-reading anarcho-halfwit and a charter member of PETA, the truth is somewhat more prosaic. He’s a good guy who doesn’t deserve to be getting called out by the American Family Association over this kind of nonsense.

(And yes, I suppose I would feel slightly more sympathy if he hadn’t taken so damn long to get involved the last time a mob of lunatics tried to shut the Commentator down based on a spurious claim of “hate speech”. However, it’s possible that he still bears a grudge over this.)

It’s 7:10 and the meeting’s beginning. Senator Dallas Brown has made a motion to add his resolution regarding the Insurgent to the agenda, which Senator Sara Hamilton has seconded. I’ll be doing occasional updates through the comments section as the meeting progresses.

UPDATE: There is no longer a motion for a resolution on the table. Instead there is time set aside for the Senate to discuss the Insurgent.

UPDATE: A majority of the Student Senate has walked out of the meeting rather than discuss the Insurgent’s content. The members who did not walk out were Wally Hicks, Dallas Brown, Kyle McKenzie, Toby Piering, and Natalie Kinsey. Booo to the members who walked. While I don’t think the Senate should have attempted to handle the matter, it’s unreasonable to just walk out of a meeting rather than drop discussion through the proper process. As far as I can tell, Senate can talk about the issue’s content without violating Southworth. Indeed, the Senate itself debated the Emerald’s own coverage of Senate on May 10. (This is admittedly a slightly different scenario since the ODE is a contracted group rather than a student group.)

This is extremely long and wordy, so those of you with short attention spans can skip right to the comments section, engage your caps lock key, and start with the fire and brimstone. The rest of you: please be patient.

UPDATE: Tonight’s Student Senate meeting will take place at 7:00 pm in the EMU Fir Room.
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Pira Kelly, noted local loon, “defends” herself in an ODE guest commentary today. She attempts, quite laughably, to draw a distinction between calling for the defunding of The Oregon Commentator by a bunch of ignorant, pissed-off idiots and the more recent calls for the defunding of The Student Insurgent by different ignorant, pissed-off idiots.

They printed ableist, racist and homophobic slurs on a campus that is so hostile to students with disabilities, students of color and queer students that even minimalist and inadequate administrative attention to campus climate requires massive protest.

Well, aside from all of that being blatantly untrue, it doesn’t really change the principles involved any. Even were I to grant, out of some misguided sense of sportsmanship, that her claims are correct it would still be illegal to defund the Commentator for them. I guess from a world-view where oppossing affirmative action is “racist”, or where one can be positively for same-sex marriage but still a “homophobe”, or where satirizing Joe McCarthy creates a “racist environment“, Pira’s foolish attempts to justify calling to shut others up make sense. From the final paragraph:

In a special note to Tyler Graf, editor emeritus of the Commentator: I’m not entirely sure what you’re trying to accomplish by defending our publication. Stock up points so that the next time you stomp on someone we’ll feel so indebted to you that we won’t call you out? How The Insurgent collective interacts with you and the Commentator is not my decision, but as an individual I am not ever going to allow injustice to happen because the perpetrators came to my defense with empty rhetoric when it was convenient for them.

Firstly, congratulations to Tgraf for provoking such ire from a pinko. Secondly, The Commentator is defending The Insurgent precisely because we have principles. It is more important to us that everyone be free to openly exchange ideas than that those ideas are ones we agree with, or even if they’re even logical. There is a lot of case law surrounding this issue, Pira, and more importantly a matter of deeply held principle on the part of the Oregon Commentator and its staff. Individuals should never, under any circumstances, be legally punished for expressing their opinion regardless of how stupid, hurtful, offensive, or improper some other person or group of people might find it. That’s one of the greatest insights to come out of the Enlightenment, and one of the most important freedoms to protect. That you can’t understand something so beautifully simple exposes a horrendous flaw in your judgement, and shows you to be one of the most duplicitous sort: one who will gladly grant government authority to take retributive actions against those with whom you disagree, but then has the audacity to complain when others demand that same authority be leveraged against you.

Frankly, you make me ill, but I will defend to the death your right to do so.

Please understand the following things:

1) The is the blog of the OREGON COMMENTATOR we are not, in fact, The Student Insurgent.

2) We have covered this purely as newsworthy, we’ve little to say on the content of the cartoons. Personally, I liked Coppertone Jesus, but beyond that found them mostly juvenile and dumb.

3) Before commenting on the relative merits of funding such speech via the incidental fee, please read and understand Rosenberger v. Rector, NEA v Finley, and especially Southworth v Board of Regents. This is at least a decent sample of the case law involved, grok this before mouthing off.

4) If you’d like to evangelize to the Student Insurgent in addition to us, email them or feel free to give them a ring.

More Insurgent in the press today:

The Register-Guard prints an opinion piece giving some praise to the Frohn for his handling of the situation thus far. I guess the choice quote is:

During the Muslim riots, critics never missed an opportunity to point out that such violence was virtually unthinkable in the Christian world, given Western traditions of religious pluralism and freedom of expression.

But the Muslim hysteria was designed to produce the same result as the pressure being applied to Frohnmayer by angry Christians: complete suppression of the offensive speech.

The Sunday Oregonian also printed a commentary about the Insurgent affair that has some decent background and mentions some of our contribution to the whole affair. Sadly, author Steve Duin doesn’t add much to the debate.