47 CommentsYes, we know that October 4th was almost two weeks ago and most of you are sick of it, but there’s still a bit of news trickling in that we thought we’d share.
Item # 1: We reported earlier that several protesters had been sent letters enumerating the charges against them, and they met with administrators today regarding their punishment. Bwog is not at liberty to report any more details at this time. The Columbia Protesters Defense Committee, however, has been busy, posting flyers all over campus this afternoon to generate support. They might need it: Professor Rodolfo de la Garza, in a forum tonight on immigration, blasted the protesters for trying to get themselves off the hook. “There’s a sense in which if you participate in a demonstration, good for you. But don’t say, Columbia, you can’t punish me,” he said, pointing emphatically. “We’re too old to give freebies. We pay our way.”
Item # 2: Today literary theorist Stanley Fish, in his New York Times blog, called Gilchrist’s speech a “piece of entertainment,” calling out “Chris Kulawick” for intentionally provoking a response (well Chris, at least this won’t show up on Google). Apparently it’s persuaded some people. In the days following the protest, Claudio Lomnitz, head of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, circulated a letter within the department in support of the protesters, but said in the same forum that he has reconsidered since reading Professor Fish’s blog.
Item # 3: Footage of Karina Garcia v. Jim Gilchrist on Democracy Now has been YouTubed. Okay, that’s not really news, but two items does not a Daily Minute make!
– LBD
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47 Comments
@Lydia Neither of them attended the forum; they declined the invitation to sit on the panel once it became clear what the event was about. The e-mail that went out to the CU Dems listserv yesterday was out of date.
@can someone please explain to me why Bwog is so obsessed with this story? Let it die already. And can someone also explain to me why Avi and Taylor have gotten so involved in it? Why they spoke at an ACLU-sponsored “freedom of speech” panel Tuesday night? I thought Bwog was here to bring us news, not be part of it…
@interesting analysis Maybe it took some time to set in, but it looks more and more like the protesters might have won this thing looking forward.
The Minutemen Project has gone from something few people knew about to a mostly hated fringe entity that has to defend itself routintely on Fox News. When Gilchrist had the chance to defend himself on Democracy Now, he pulled the plug because he disagreed with Garcia, calling her words propaganda, whether true or untrue (the first amendment calls for Gilchrist to use better words — instead, he ended the interview). A week earlier on Fox News, Gilchrist laughed the matter off, calling it welcomed controversey.
The group continues to drag out an angry black man who claims to have carried pepper spray the night of the Roone speech who now desires to sue the university for hate crimes — all because a dozen students jumped on their university stage and unfurled a banner. Further, said angry black man now does little more than call for the resignation of Bollinger. Good luck with that.
Finally, the image of the College Republicans has been all but tarnished. Kulawik had to remove all personal information from their website. Their events (which continue completely unrelated to the Republican Party) are subject to strict RSVP policies. And their leaders has turned into a right-wing figure-head at a far-left-jihadist-kool-aid institution. Well done, College GOP.
@the above post disregards all facts.
The Walid event on the 11th was open to ALL CUID students. If you read any of the articles re: the event, you’d know that they wanted an “open event” but it was the admin which demanded RSVPs for non CUID.
So before you go talking out of your ass, do some research – actually, who cares, nobody takes you seriously anyway.
@tackling, legality As an ISO member, I don’t recognize either person involved in the tackle. I would; there aren’t that many of us. I don’t know where people are getting this idea that it’s one of us. Its not. (It does appear to me that the Minuteman tackles the other guy, not vice versa. Of course I can’t say for sure, not having seen it in person or talked to either.)
Regarding legality. I have heard that several of the Minutemen there were actually Gilchrist’s paid bodyguards, which would make him liable. No proof, but they certainly behaved like it – notice how two rush to the stage in the videos even before the protesters from the audience, and run over to stand by Gilchrist.
@"heard" I “heard” there was a second shooter on a grassy knoll too, B.F.D.
@wow fish’s editorial is brilliant. he’s so good.
@who'd trust the writing of somene who can’t even spell a name correctly?
@Oh h Shut up. That’s all you can add to the mix?
@Anonymous and the worst part is that this conversation is worthless. With the recent flare up at Columbia, the pretext of the protest has been ignored. Instead of the conversation being about border security, immigration, human rights, labor, etc. it has mutated into over zealous college students who attend a liberal jihad factory.
Have we forgotten that we would not require the Minutemen and the ISO to represent the two opposing sides of the debate if any of the presidential administrations for which immigration has been a relevant issue had done something? We have left our outdated immigration policy to the wind and have not done enough in terms of addressing the real problems, such as regulating the corporations and businesses that hire illegal immigrants, the labor market and social conditions in Mexico that cause laborers to come to the US, the domestic farming situation that depends on immigrants, etc. and instead we are trying to build a giant wall. George W. Bush, to his credit, at least tried to offer a solution with work visas and imposing fines. Nothing tangible and sensical is being moved on at the pace it needs to be.
And what are we focused on? The bogeyman conspiracy left wing and the counter conspiracy right wing. And some anonymous blowhard calling me a fucking moron.
@wirc alright… everybody put your guns away….slowly
@Anonymous and gosh, I thought I was originally only making a comment about the protestors needing to hold themselves accountable for their actions if they believed in them so much. Who would have thought it would have turned into snarkfest? Oh wait, we all saw that coming.
@the problem isn’t that all you said was that the protestors need to be held accountable. its partially the continuous habit of those who are among the intellectual left in the university who always seem to preface that protestors belief with something which necesarilly deflects and tries to blame gilchrist/the college republicans/etc.
@Anonymous Protestors are accountable for rushing the stage and disruption and the minutemen that were involved in documented violence are accountable for their actions. If I was trying to deflect, I would have placed that short paragraph at the end of my comment, and not at the beginning.
I didn’t blame Gilchrist or the College Republicans for anything, well other than what they did. I didn’t say they incited violence, I didn’t say they were responsible for what happened, I didn’t even make a Kulawik joke. Actually I didn’t make any comment about them other than that a few of their members beat some kids up. The whole jist of the comment was that if the protestors truly believed in their cause, they would be willing to face consequences and not try to wiggle out of any disciplinary measures. That’s copping out.
Since I was commenting about the Gilchrist video it would make sense to comment on Gilchrist. I didn’t realize to be honest, I had to ignore anything not criticizing the protestors. It puzzles me why the “anti-protestor” crowd chooses not to level any criticism against the Minutemen, as if it was okay to fight first ask questions later.
@anti protestor? crowd? from what i can tell. all those that have been hard on the protestors freely admit the kicker should be punished severely. otherwise there’s nothing to be critical about. inventing CR motives or trying to argue about the nature of the minutemen are wholly irrelevant.
@how is it copping out to demand that the university recognize that the protesters did the right thing?
@they shouldn't expell the protestors. nor will they. expect something rather mild. they should be punished in some way indeed, but let’s be honest, fuck jim gilchrist.
if they do something drastic it would only be under the pressure of outside media and that i would protest.
@yeah. and let me add. fuck those who want to redistribute property based upon ivory tower theories. fuck terrorists. fuck death penalty abolitionists who let pedophilic murderers go free. fuck baby killer abortionists. fuck howard dean. fuck hillary clinton. fuck anybody who disagrees with me
@oh yeah fuck barack obama. fuck russ fiengold. and fuck noam chomsky/alexander cockburn.
there. that should sufficiently cover everyone
@Obviously Stanley Fish does not understand humor. “Most Despised Person on Campus” is Chris K.’s way of making a joke. Ha Ha! You liberals are so ideological, you don’t even have a sense of humor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@yeah. it was in his eboard bio, where basically all the members put in snarky or humorous comments. but hey, taking comments out of context or trying to misconstrue them to support your view isn’t that far off for a guy like Fish.
@bwog stop this. you’re hypocritical whores if you keep on flaming this and then complaining its lasting. i’m tired of this being all i hear about.
@Columbian Well if they expell the protestors, I would consider protesting (of course quietly in the designated protest area at a time when no one has reserved it for free, racist speech). And I’ve never even protested anything before…
@free racist speech? is howard dean coming to campus?
@Columbian I am definitely not radical, and I would be extremely opposed to the protestors being expelled. I don’t think it’s fair to expell someone unless there is relatively unanimous consent that they did something worthy of expulsion. If the issue is questionable (yes, it clearly is questionable in this case, or there would not be so much argument/discussion about it) I think the administration should give a lower punishment (if they deem punishment necessary).
@thermonuclear boxers I’m in favor of them throwing the protesters out.
But only if they throw out those kids who drew the swastikas and “offensive language” or whatever on that Ruggles suite last year.
Otherwise, give ’em what you gave those “offensive language” drunkards: a slap on the wrist and protection from the NYPD. Yeah, that’ll look great in the press.
@well considering that one is a case which is actually a criminal law punishment and another is an insitutional one, youre analogy is absurd. I don’t think expulsion is necessary, but they need to be stripped of all club positions and be suspended for a week.
@look bwog. i’m a moderate so i’ll try to clear this up for you. I recognize bwog is left of center. that’s fine. i don’t expect a gossip bwog to lose its personal qualities-its what makes bwog great. However, the protestors are currently really only being supported by those who are solid left to hard left. That’s why avi and tayler can be apologists for them or can do the blame the victim canard without surprising me. Or why you’ll see hundreds to thousands of signatures on their national petition or why they’ll have a significant amount of support at columbia. However in the real world, at least 75% of america is not solid left to hard left, and the protestors are detested by the rest of that group. It’s the reason why even de la Garza won’t defend their punishment.
@actually mark rudd and others were expelled after 1968. there were punishments in those situations. usually they try to protest against reprisals but there are consequences.
however, mr. fish hits this whole thing right on the head (along with jon stewart’s mockery of the whole affair.) **Rather the questions to be asked are: Did it rock? Was it a blast? Was a good time had by all?**
Yes, I was there and the whole thing was outrageous and awesome. It was raw and hilarious.
@yeah. so was i. and i can guarantee you. for the people in the front rows when the rush happened, it wasn’t funny. I was worried i’d actually have to fight and with like 20 people rushing me i wasn’t thrilled with the idea.
the fact you found it funny is pretty deplorable and short sighted
@Anonymous Not trying to downplay your being scared, but, what made you think that you were being rushed. Why you, someone in the audience, sitting down, would be attacked by students who don’t know your political leanings or views on Gilchrist, would be the target of a group of protestors moving towards the stage. I’m just trying to get a grasp of why anybody, other than those on the stage with people actually coming at them, would feel that they would need to engage in a fight with anybody.
Watching the new video, Gilchrist is trying to avoid getting himself in legal trouble. His organization attacked the protestors, one was kicked in the side (I don’t know where the kicked in the head thing came from), one was tackled (no it was not the other way around), and they had an overly aggressive tug of war on the banner. He is going to have to deal with legal woes of video evidence of assault by members of his organization. The more he talks, the more he’s going to dig a hole.
That said, I don’t understand Karina’s stance or most of the protestors who are trying to avoid accountability. Personally, I think rushing the stage was a bad idea, but I think I understand if they felt that was the only way their message would be actively conveyed. There have been very few social changes in American history that have been made through proper, established channels of communication, most have been made by protesting, illegal occupation of private property, making ones views wide public knowledge, and bringing injustice to the forefront of the discussion. Going through the suggestion box doesn’t do anything. I think that part is obvious, that is why the Minutemen exist, that is why the protestors stormed the stage; it is the fault of the US government for not taking any action.
However, pushing your views to center stage requires accountability. If you are willing to storm the stage for your cause, you need to be willing to face consequences for your actions. Perhaps they didn’t mean to provoke violence and just wanted to be removed by security, but the break down in peaceful protest is a scenario that they risked. Everyone will answer for what they did, the assault, the rushing of the stage, you have to be accountable at all stages, why try to shed accountability in the face of adversity?
@well the protestors rushed from the left facing the stage at angle and were yelling and running full speed in an already tense situaton. as a result for most of the front row, becuase of the angle it appeared as though they were charging them. fear of violence was easily justified.
by the way stephen, your migration to apologist is appalling. gilchrist afraid to be sued? are you a fucking moron? the only minutmen caught kicking isnt even associated with gilchrist and the group. an individual action in this case isn’t sufficient standing to sue an organization. Otherwise, every antiwar protest would have resulted in hundreds of cases of litigation. as for the tackler, he has been repeatedly identified, as well as by the ADMINISTRATION, as a former GS student who is part of the ISO. Your lies are pathetic. Finally, if anybody has a legal case, its gilchrist against some of the protestors. You cannot publicly slander somebody by calling them a killer or racist, which is why he cut short the demoracy now interview. Your deluded account of the situation shows that you certainly aren’t the reasoned spectator that you try to make yourself out to be.
In fact, I don’t even know what grounds you’re suggesting gilchrist could be sued upon. He was slandered, had his event disrupted and ended (in what was a violation of university policy by the protestors), and then he didn’t even resort to the nasty personal ad hom slanderous attacks the protestors did. I really hope you’re not considering law school stephen.
As for you infantile suggestion box theory. Try not making overreaching theories without significant and well documented back up or you’ll just be another dime a dozen know it all theorist- i mean brown vs board wasn’t peaceful right, neither was women’s sufferage or the civil disobediance movements largely responsable for success in india, the us or ukraine. These methods may take longer (or not- again this requres significant study), but you’re suggestion that we should not hesitate to use the sword doesn’t mean there’s isn’t an intellectual solution, but rather that you’re too lazy to try to figure it out.
@Anonymous Am I a fucking moron? I’d like to think not, are you a dick for suggesting that? yes. For all of the loud clamours against ad hominem attacks against people like Gilchrist and against Kulawik, the loudest ad hominem attacks by far, are the ones from people like you.
As for legal trouble, what I actually meant was for individuals within his organization, not Gilchrist personally. I miswrote, sorry, call me a fucking moron again. What I was trying to get across was that I would assume the Minutemen would assist in legal matters for memberse that were at the event. Enlighten me though about the person kicking the student, if he is not associated with Gilchrist or the Minutemen in any way, why was he on stage? Do you have proof, since you ask for it so adamantly yourself, that he is not a member of the Minutemen?
Is what I incorrectly wrote any stupider than the Minutemen preparing to serve Columbia University with a hate crime lawsuit for treating Marvin Stewart “as if he was a slave in chains on an auction block”.
Since we are engaging in juvenile name calling, you are right, I am not applying to law school. I already have a job and I do it very well. You on the other hand may be worried about any lawschool application as you seem to have a tendency to approach everything completely one sidedly and resort to name calling and ad hominems when you disagree with something.
If I try and rationalize what the protestors were thinking when they marched on stage, even if I preceded my comment with “I don’t agree with them”, I am labeled an apologist, a liar, a “fucking moron”, my ability to apply to lawschool is put to question, and other patronizing statements about my comments being infantile. In the real world, maybe you’ll realize when you get there, people try not to be such assholes to one another. Ooops. sorry that slipped out.
As for my comment about the suggestion box, it is by no means infantile. I never ever said that effective social change had to be pushed by violence, that is something you insinuated incorrectly. I said that established channels have very seldom been the means by which social change is affected.
I’m sorry I didn’t realize that the BWOG comment thread was a place where I had to cite sources and examples to placate people like you. I don’t know if you intentionally bastardized my comment to say that I meant that I wouldn’t hesitate to use the sword. I meant that cases of social injustice, before they make it to the legal system (e.g. Brown v. Board) are predicated by protests that are not always legal. If you are suggesting that racial segregation would have been solved had we just went through the supreme court in the first place, in absence of any social precedents, you are sadly very mistaken.
Anyways that said, are you too lazy to examine root causes and are only interested in their effects? That’s what it seems like. Maybe I’m not lawschool material, it’s better than being ill suited for civil discourse, as you have illustrated yourself as being.
@please making charged and false statements are substitutes for ad homs. first you admit that you were utterly wrong in terms of legal matters regarding gilchrist. Yeah, i’m sure that the minutemen organization would take on the legal fees of one member acting of his own free will so that they could incur the negative media attention and support a case which would be a definite loss where the guy was likely at fault. By the way, as for the tackling socialist, he’s already been identified in past bwog posts and you have a lot of gall to definitely claim he was a minutemen in your original post and now backtrack so quickly. As for the kicker, much like about 30 other people, after the protestors rushed the stage, he actually jumped on to it from the audience. Of course considering the fact you weren’t there, i’m not suprised that you wouldn’t know that and yet still feel you could make definitive statements about it. Furthermore your slave in the chains paragraph is absurd. The minutemen do likely have (a very tenuous) case against the university, but i would suppose with all the positive media coverege, they will likely not press on what would likely be a lost cause.
As for comments on my ability with regards to legal reasoning, i’ll take charges of one sidedness more seriously from a person whose main point that gilchrist was the one who should worried about litigation against him with a grain of salt. In fact, you haven’t responded to the fact the best case out of all of this is one of slander. Furthermore, you ignored my first paragraph, which debunked your first one.
As for being an asshole and being one sided stephen, i’ve seen your posts on this event for a week and a half now, and all you’ve done is apologize for the minutemen or accuse the minutemen of being racists and the cr’s of being those looking to incite, or been making third hand suggestions of how the event and storming should be viewed. Considering you weren’t even there, all of your views are certainly one sided, and your arrogrance in not even understanding how those up front could feel threatened is actually assholish. The reason i’m responding to you with ad homs is because your fallacious screeds deserved them. This all of course ignores the fact that you know nothing about me or my relation to the real world. And spare me what the real world is like when you’re one of the minority in america who are sympathetic to the protestors in this case. If you don’t feel that the public at large has actually added a little support to the minutemen because of this then you’re not looking through this clearly.
Finally, as for the suggestion box rhetoric, you should definitely expect criticism if you try to just state a theory as accepted or probable when it isn’t. If i said, ‘well based on the idea that christian theology is the standard for an argument’ and then made an argument based upon it, i would not only have to defend the argument following my basis, but also the justification for using christian theology. Either way, the burden is upon YOU to prove your system is reasonable. That’s why its reasonable to critize your basis because it is such a grandiose assumption which has to be validated. Unless you can prove that in most cases legal recourses don’t work, your theory is shot and so were your original two paragraphs. And if you want cases, i’ll shoot a whole list at you—how about roper vs. simmons, woman’s suffrage movements, General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, the vinson case etc. So please don’t try to claim that you somehow have the right to claim the superiority of a theory and place the onus of defending its use on your opponents.
@Anonymous this is beginning to border on ridiculous.
Yes I did admit I was wrong and miswrote a paragraph on legal culpability.
I never claimed that the guy in the blue shirt was a Minuteman. What i’ve said repeatedly on the matter is that if you go frame by frame, it looks to be physically impossible for the blue shirted ISO member to be tackling anybody as he was already half way on the ground and the video seems to show the suited gentleman tackling him. That’s a little thing that whoever takes care of this in the end will take better evidence and assess who was at fault. Did I mislabel him and backtrack, no.
Was my main point in the original post that Gilchrist should be worried about a lawsuit. As it took up one paragraph out of four, and knowing my own intent of the comment, I can quite frankly say that was not the main point. Nor was the comment structured in a manner to make it the main point.
I didn’t respond to the slander point… because… I didn’t. I will if you like me too, I think he was slandered, it is a false accusation to call him a white supremacist or KKK member because those elements support him. So yes, I think he was slandered.
I think that support for the minutemen has absolutely increased by virtue of this happening. Albeit, for the wrong reasons as it is completely separate from the relevant immigration discussion and that of border security.
The last paragraph, aside from your ad hominems, is the only thing I take issue with. Citing law cases glosses over the underlying social foundations that led to them. We can say, yes Brown v. Board ‘legally’ set a precedent, women’s suffrage set a precedent and they were all done through the legal system. Suprise suprise, they are legal cases, again, my point being, those legal cases are the end product of social struggles for which there did not exist a legal means or a vocal-attention grabbing means by which to approach the problem.
You can continue to cite case after case, my point will continue to be, not that you need violent uproarious means to get your point across, but that social change has been set forth by people pushing legal and social structures. Brown v. Board didn’t appear out of nowhere when someone decided, hey I don’t like segragation, let’s stop this. Women’s suffrage wasn’t a notorized letter to the President saying they wanted equal rights. Such changes were set off by protests, rallies, sit-ins, illegal occupation of businesses, etc. People stood up for what they believed in, some went to jail for a little bit, some were shouted down by their opposition, some got in physical scuffles, but to simplify it down to, ‘oh everything can be taken care of peacefully and adminstratively through the legal system’ is absurd. I’m sorry but I’m not going to provide evidence for this.
@I wonder How has the university disciplined students in similar circumstances, or even in more severe disruptions, like the many times students have taken over buildings?
@give it up the protestors and columbia have lost. Look at this http://news.google.com/news?q=columbia%20minutemen&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wn . the vast majority are anti-protestors/columbia
you can try to play defense on the media war bwog, but at this point you’re on teh losing team
@Yep I really just don’t see any argument that “being shouted down” and “hounded off a stage” is not infringing on freedom of speech. I bet Fish does’nt either, so he just says it’s not as though it were divine truth.
@obfuscating the point.
it may not be a freedom of speech issue constitutionally, but given the university policy and that the students stormed the stage (which is a much more violent activity because they actively broke through a barrier and numerous spectators an others have said they feared for their physical safety at that point) and that the blue shirted socialist (who bwog seems to not want to acknowledge) tackled a guy, this definitely can constitute a violation of the university’s free speech policy and definitely the larger spirit of free speech (which is especially relevant considering columbia’s purported reputation as a center of academic discourse- in that sense ahmadinejad also should have been allowed to speak- though the situations were different).
@in fact it’s infuriating that no one considers the protestors’ freedom of speech in this situation. bollinger has betrayed his own students by championing the rights of jim glichrist and ignoring the right of the people who, like gilchrist, are guaranteed their own constitutional rights. freedom to speak and right to assemble were both in play that night, and neither gilchrist nor the protestors stepped outside those rights. the constitution does not allow free speech only if it involves no violence; it makes no specific bounds on our rights. that is the job of law enforcement. and the proper law enforcement was woefully absent not only during the protest but, perhaps more damagingly, prior to it as well.
@god do you understand that there are no con law issues formally at issue here? that this is about university policy?
also, the fact that apologists continue to purposely ignore the active decision to violently disrupt the event is pathetic. freedom to speak and assemble are definitely advocated by the university in spirit. In fact, they were provided for by the outside protest and even the peaceful non disruptive inside one. If it was just heckling or drowning out of the speech, that also would be more of a questionable scenario. However, the second violent physical action was taken this became an intimidatory action on the act of one party which not only violated unversity policy but also squelched the idea of free speech. I’m constantly amazed by the failure to recognize this. No wonder so many idiots find the lsat’s hard.
@Columbian http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/?p=18 The link isn’t blocked… I did not log in or anything to view it.
Here is a nice excerpt:
“It follows that the editorial page of The New York Post was wrong (as usual) when it demanded that the Columbia administration “expel each and every one of the guilty students.” Guilty of what? Apparently no one was hurt, so the answer cannot be guilty of assault; even guilty of attempted assault would be a stretch. Guilty of a violation of Mr. Gilchrist’s free speech rights? He has no constitutional right not to be shouted down or hounded off the stage. No government has abridged his freedom of expression. And he can give his talk elsewhere (no doubt he already has) or come back and give it at Columbia when the university has instituted better crowd-control measures. At most, the students are guilty of being impolite, bumptious and rowdy, but again, this is the kind of behavior that the event – more akin to a keg party than to a reasoned discussion – was designed to elicit. If there is any discipline to be meted out here, its object should be not the students, who were doing just what they were expected and (in some sense) directed to do, but those administrators or staff members who, by virtue of their positions, were responsible for seeing that nothing went wrong, or, at least, too wrong. “
@CC '05 Money quote. Word.
@mr. fish is a joke of an academic. He deigns to know what type of event this was meant to be, claims that the charging of the stage and breaking of a barrier (as well as the visible tackling of a person by the blue shirted socialist) is nothing but ‘bumptious and rowdy’ behavior and then tries to make the argument they shouldn’t be expelled because it violated no federal constitutional right? Remind me when universities code of conduct as private institutions were only limited to the federal government’s bill of rights (our actions w/regard to the rotc and speech codes would beg for another opinion on that), or when Mr. Fish suddenly joined the executive board of the columbia college republicans, or when Mr. Fish became the sole arbiter of what constitutes an event which is meant for academic discrouse versus a theatrical one. There’s a good reason that Fish’s postmodern musings are given a soapbox at FIU. He didn’t make a single coherent legal arugment throughout the peace and should really stick to Milton and other subjects he has far more expertise on.
@Columbian Was the forum about immigration, or about how exciting it is to have people get into a fight over immigration? (emphasis in “fight” not “immigration” in the second one)
@Fish piece Anyone care to repost Stanley Fish’s piece? It’s behind the wall that the New York Times set up to deter people from reading their columists.
@pirate There’s No Business Like Show Business
On Oct. 4, some Columbia University students rushed a stage during a public lecture and prevented Jim Gilchrist, the leader of the anti-immigration Minuteman Project, from speaking. Every day brings new controversies like this one and renewed complaints that the traditional mission of the liberal arts has been abandoned and replaced by partisanship and ideological zealotry, usually identified as emanating from a left-leaning faculty unchecked by weak administrators. There’s something to the weak administrators bit, if only because administrators often have a weak grasp of the distinctions that would enable them to draw clear and rational lines marking off what is appropriate from what is not.
The first thing to note is that although the aborted lecture was to have been given in an academic venue, the occasion was not itself academic; it was theatrical. Any education that might have transpired had Mr. Gilchrist been allowed to give his talk would have been incidental to the shock value of his appearance before an audience known in advance to be hostile to his message. That was why he was invited, not to impart instruction but to provoke a response (and it is the response rather than the content that is always focused on in media reports), although in this instance those who brought him to campus got more than they bargained for. The spirit presiding over this occasion from the beginning was more Jerry Springer than Socrates. Jeers, catcalls, insults and (verbal) brickbats were not intrusions on the performance, but predictable ingredients of it; had they been absent, organizers and audience alike would have gone away disappointed because they would not have gotten their student-fees worth. It’s just that things got a little out of hand.
When I call the occasion theatrical, I am not registering a criticism. Theater is what it is supposed to be, and theater is what it would also be were another student group to invite Noam Chomsky or Michael Moore. The intention, whoever the invitee, is not to analyze an issue, but to “stir things up,” a euphemism for the intention to tick somebody off. Chris Kulawick, the student president of the group sponsoring the talk, made this crystal clear when he said it was his dearest wish “to attain the cherished title of ‘Most Despised Person on Campus.'”
Once one understands the true nature of the event, one understands too the scope (and limits) of the university’s responsibility. In the context of what is essentially a piece of entertainment, Columbia, or any other university, does not have the responsibility to protect free speech or encourage democratic debate or stand up for academic freedom. These resonant phrases, invoked at the drop of a hat by parties on every side, are simply too large for what is going on. The university’s responsibility is, rather, to safety and (relatively) good order. Just as you don’t want your rock concert to end in the destruction of property or the injury of spectators (although you do want a little unruliness; it belongs to the genre), so you don’t want the provoked energies of those present at a campus spectacle to break up either the program or the furniture. After all, tomorrow is another day and a new act will be coming to town (on October 10th it was I), and it won’t come if the university gets the reputation of assembling crowds which it cannot then control.
It follows that the editorial page of The New York Post was wrong (as usual) when it demanded that the Columbia administration “expel each and every one of the guilty students.” Guilty of what? Apparently no one was hurt, so the answer cannot be guilty of assault; even guilty of attempted assault would be a stretch. Guilty of a violation of Mr. Gilchrist’s free speech rights? He has no constitutional right not to be shouted down or hounded off the stage. No government has abridged his freedom of expression. And he can give his talk elsewhere (no doubt he already has) or come back and give it at Columbia when the university has instituted better crowd-control measures. At most, the students are guilty of being impolite, bumptious and rowdy, but again, this is the kind of behavior that the event – more akin to a keg party than to a reasoned discussion – was designed to elicit. If there is any discipline to be meted out here, its object should be not the students, who were doing just what they were expected and (in some sense) directed to do, but those administrators or staff members who, by virtue of their positions, were responsible for seeing that nothing went wrong, or, at least, too wrong.
Everything I have said so far is simply an unpacking of the distinction between curricular and extracurricular activities. Extracurricular means outside (the Latin extra) the curriculum and therefore outside the protocols and values that govern the classroom. And this means, in turn, that the norms by which extracurricular activities are to be measured belong not to morality or philosophy or constitutional law (all versions of what I call “big think”), but to show business. The question to be asked is not did it further free speech or contribute to a robust democratic culture or provide a genuine educational experience? Rather the questions to be asked are: Did it rock? Was it a blast? Was a good time had by all?
Now one might think that if we turn from the extracurricular to the curricular – to contexts that are actually and centrally academic – the moral and philosophical questions I have just dismissed would be reinstated with full force. But in fact I don’t believe that morality and philosophy have very much to do with curricular matters either, although if you are interested in knowing why I believe that, you’ll have to wait for my next post.