“I Feel It Is Our Responsibility To Take Action…”
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.
Student Senator Dallas Brown is set to introduce a resolution at this Wednesday’s Senate meeting which condemns the Insurgent‘s Aroused Jesus issue and threatens to cut their funding by at least 50% in the upcoming year if they do not issue an apology.
The following is directly from a letter Brown sent late last night to the rest of the Senate (formatting errors are verbatim from the email):
Hey guys, I put this resolution in Stephanie’s mailbox on Thursday
with a note…Its not on the agenda for Weds.meeting for some reason.
I was hoping we could debate this. I feel it is our responsibility to
take action and I hope everyone sees the merit in hearing this
resolution. It will probably be very publicized and I hope both Mike
and Jared see the benefit of postponing official resignation as to be
included as voting members.Lets go out with a bang.
Resolution to Condemn the “Student Insurgent’s March 2006, volume
17.4 publication.Author: Dallas W. Brown
Sponsor: Dallas W. Brown
1.Resolution To Condemn the “Student Insurgent’s” March
2006,volume 17.4 2.publication, funded by the Associated Students of
the University of Oregon Incidental 3.Fee.4.Whereas, the effects of the issue have resulted in the potential
loss of University 5.Alumni donations, ticket sales to athletic events
and enrollment, and6.Whereas, the content of the issue offended a significant number of
individuals who 7.attend the University, and8.Whereas, the content of the issue was pornographic, and distributed
in public places, 9.and10.Whereas, the content was designed to offend and not educate,
11.Whereas, the content was malicious and vulgar,
12.Whereas, the content cannot be defended as means to the cultural
and physical 13.development of campus, and14.Whereas, the University is an avenue for discourse and argument and
a institute for 15.cultural tolerance,16.Whereras, student fees primarly fund the “Student Insurgent”,
17.Be it Resolved;
18.The ASUO Student Senate formally condemns the March 2006 issue of
the campus 19.published “Student Insurgent”, and20.Demands a formal apology from the “Student Insurgent” to
offended members of the 21.community,22.Uses educational benefit as the criteria for published materials in
the future, and23.If the above recommendations are not implemented by members of the
“Student 24.Insurgent” be it further Resolved;25.The Student Senate formally requests that the Programs Finance
Committee initiate 26.cuts to the “Student Insurgent” 2007-2008
budget allotment request to equal or exceed 27. 50% of the 2006-2007
allocated budget.
As anyone who has been following our blog could tell, this resolution appears to ignore the Southworth Supreme Court decision. I asked both outgoing ASUO President Adam Walsh and incoming President Jared Axelrod what their thoughts on Brown’s resolution were. “I hope he’s joking,” opined Walsh. “The resolution itself would never pass through the Con. Court” since it attacks the Insurgent’s funding and is “a blatant violation of viewpoint neutrality in the budget process.” Walsh added that the Executive would oppose the resolution at the Senate meeting, which coincidentally takes place on the last day he holds office. Axelrod was more guarded in his remarks but nevertheless agreed, stating “while I personally disagree with what was printed in the Student Insurgent, I stand behind students’ First Amendment freedom of speech rights.”
Needless to say, I was perplexed by Brown’s decision to go ahead with the resolution and decided that we at the Commentator should talk to him to discover his reasoning.
Brown’s argument is essentially that Southworth does not fully extend First Amendment rights to student-funded groups. According to him, it allows the door to be closed, for instance, to content does not promote the physical and cultural development of the student body or is pornographic in nature. “The University defines the standards by which publications can print,” he said. “And this University has defined that standard as programs which support the physical and cultural development of the University.”
“Within Southworth it says that the University establishes a general criteria for which to judge programs. It’s a mission and goals statement, essentially. And they have to be aiding [the University] in certain things. Like for instance, the University of Oregon is very clear throughout the Green Tape Notebook—it’s the most common phrase—‘to benefit the cultural and physical development of the University’. All I have to supply is evidence that shows that the Insurgent did counter to that criteria and goal. And they have so.”
But when I asked him if the Insurgent had not indeed created discourse and debate, he agreed, saying that “there has been discourse and debate about this to some extent, but that wasn’t the intentions of the individuals who did it. In fact, the[ir] intentions were to offend.”
But based on the Insurgent’s issue, this is only partially true. While collective member Jessica Brown, who writes like sperm think, made quite clear that her intention was to offend and “piss people off,” the willy-nilly editorial explicitly states “we also intend to provoke dialogue.” And it becomes clear that the Insurgent intended to create debate since there is debate within the very pages of the issue. The section titled “What The Hell Were We Thinking???” reveals a rare individualistic opportunity for Survival Center hangers-on to voice differing opinions on the matter: “Why are so many people I know comfortable bashing on Christianity? It’s not kosher to rip on any other religion and tear it to shreds,” says “Dinae,” who also claims to have opposed the publication of the Jesus cartoons.
What is so incredibly galling about efforts to defund the Insurgent is that it plays into exactly what they allege in their pages: that the U.S. is not tolerant of free speech when negativity is directed towards its dominant religion. As Don Goldman states, “we present these cartoons as a test. Just how much do we honor our own freedom of speech and how well do we deal with opposition to the U.S. religions?” Indeed, it’s almost as if the anti-free speech crusaders are doing whatever they can to prove the Insurgent‘s allegations correct.
“[T]he fact is, they had an image that was created with the sole intent and purpose of offending as many people as possible,” Brown said. One would “have a hard time defending the artistic qualities of something that has that reason [for being] created. In fact that goes more under the lines of something that’s pornographic.” Incredibly, Don Goldman also addresses this in his writeup (which, I remind you, is in the same issue as the cartoons): “‘Pornography’ still has no definition, but the reactionary right uses the word to ban all nudity, sex and anything that might concern the body from the naval down. The real issue of freedom of speech is the right to publish naked pictures of human beings.” Goldman is partly wrong– pornography does have a definition, albeit one which is murky: pornography is essentially erotic depictions created to stimulate sexual excitement within the viewer.
Was anyone was turned on by the Insurgent’s cover? Disgusted, offended, or dismayed, sure. But aroused? Wait, please don’t answer that.
Let’s say this once more, hopefully for the last time. Given that the Insurgent hasn’t printed anything illegal – which it hasn’t, and that wouldn’t be for the ASUO to decide in any case – the Programs Finance Committee can’t cut the Insurgent’s budget based on their content (although they can cut it for spending too much money on things unrelated to putting out the magazine, like travel or paying stipends to collective members – just a thought). Senate can’t pass a resolution cutting their budget based on their content. The Executive can’t capriciously decide to slice their budget based on their content. No part of the student government can start making decisions about the Insurgent’s funding based on their content. People in student government who are not named “Adam” seem to find this an incredibly difficult concept, so let me also say that even if a new committee were to be formed – one that hasn’t even been thought of yet, one that is still just a twinkle in a bureaucrat’s eye – then it still wouldn’t be able to cut the Insurgent’s budget based on its content.
Pause. “OK, then what we’ll do is refuse to recognize their mission statement, so then they won’t be able to-” No. You can’t do that either. What you can do is remove all funding for all student groups who advocate non-neutral viewpoints, which we at the Commentator would certainly be in favor of. Of course, this has a snowman’s chance in hell of happening, despite the fact that this controversy has pleasingly upgraded it from a snowball.
And while it would be a nice gesture if the Insurgent were to apologize for their recent infantile ramblings, it’s worth noting that the Collective has undergone a bit of a shake-up since Aroused Jesus came along. Don Goldman and Pira Kelly, to name but two, are no longer on the list of contributors. It might be a good bit of public relations for their successors to point this out. But be that as it may, the student government has neither legal nor moral authority to compel an apology from them. Dallas Brown’s resolution is an empty threat and a pointless piece of showboating intended to impress upon donors that the UO won’t stand for this sort of blasphemy. As Brown said in our interview: “I’m standing up for my constituents who, you know, deserve the funding that they receive from donors, from alumni, [and] from people who support the athletic teams at the University.”
One would hope that wealthy donors would take the law and not emotion into consideration when deciding what to do with their money.
