Frohnmayer calls out Pacifica Forum on “gutter bigotry”
President Frohnmayer recently issued a letter denouncing the Pacifica Forum for its sometimes “unabashedly racist” content. The letter came at the urging of the community board of Oregon Hillel, a Jewish student group on campus; they were prompted to action by a disturbing, anti-semitic screed written by PF regular Valdas Anelauskas attacking ODE columnist Deborah Bloom.
While Frohnmayer spent plenty of time denouncing the forum, he was careful not to call for their outright banishment from campus. From the Register-Guard article:
Frohnmayer said in his letter that groups such as the Pacifica Forum may use UO facilities but do not speak for the university. The appearance of any speaker on campus does not imply the UO’s “endorsement, support, or even its moral indifference to the content of a message,” he wrote.
But while Frohnmayer and members of Hillel made it clear that they weren’t questioning the forum’s right to spew forth insane drivel, Anelauskas decided to have himself a free speech pity party:
Anelauskas was unimpressed. Frohnmayer, he said, “probably just caved in to the so-called Anti-Hate Task Force and it doesn’t really do him any honor.” As to the student journalist’s column, Anelauskas said he doesn’t regret his response — “not a bit.”
“This is an issue of free speech, first and foremost,” he said. “I have the right to say anything about everything, anything and anyone, including Jews.”
For being dedicated to the free dissemination of ideas and discussion, some members of the Pacifica Forum get awfully touchy when criticized. In fact, it seems to be a standard defense of theirs to cry “censorship!” whenever challenged. Maybe Anelauskas should get used to the fact that there will be public backlash to his abhorrent ideas. Oh, and by the way, you don’t have the right to “say anything about everything, anything and anyone.” Freedom of expression is not absolute, at least if the Supreme Court of the United States has anything to say about it.
Even Orval Etter, the founder and defender of the Pacifica Forum, is starting to catch on to Anelauskas’ douchebaggery, although not as decisively as one would hope:
Etter expressed some concerns about Anelauskas but did not outright denounce his views. “I now see he’s taken a more anti-Semitic position; I didn’t sense that at first,” Etter said. “He’s a fairly scholarly guy. There’s been some yelling about him having a platform, but (people) are not picking him apart in terms of what he’s coming up with.”
What he’s coming up with? Anelauskas’ presentations are “fairly scholarly” in the same way the Time Cube is fairly scientific. People don’t debunk Anelauskas’ claims because they have no basis in reality. I can’t conclusively disprove the idea that a secret cabal of Jewish bankers run the world, much the same way that I can’t disprove that there’s a Ford Pinto orbiting Saturn.
For the record, I don’t believe the Pacifica Forum should be kicked off campus. Most people go through their lives never actually hearing the kind of things Anelauskas says. Most people aren’t aware this kind of thinking is still around, much less in their hometown. You could consider this a good thing, but on the other hand they never have the chance to refute it, to think critically, defend and further illuminate the truth. As John Milton wrote in 1664 in his Areopagitica:
“Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?”
My coverage of the Pacifica Forum is archived here.
