EWU's community rally March 10
in support of controversial speaker
Ward Churchill's appearance April 5.
(Photos by Tom Peacock/Easterner)
Posted on 04/01/2005 7:51:50 AM PST by BullDog108
By Thomas Coghlan, News Assistant
March 28, 2005
EWU's community rally March 10
in support of controversial speaker
Ward Churchill's appearance April 5.
(Photos by Tom Peacock/Easterner)
Over 300 students and faculty gathered in the Mall on March 10 to attend the rally in support of Ward Churchill and academic free speech. Martha Toolie, a Native American Student Association member said, “I invite every single one of you to our April 5 keynote speaking address that will be delivered by Mr. Ward Churchill. We are brining him here, and I encourage every one of you, if you have questions, anything that you want clarified, talk to him after he talks about contemporary Indian issues. That is why we are brining him here.”
The rally lasted around 45 minutes, and then a silent march around campus ensued.
“I don’t think it could have gone any better,” said Keven Shipman, who is heading up the Ward Churchill issue for NASA.
In addition to the large crowd of supporters, the media showed up in droves. Many local news channels covered the story on their nightly broadcasts.
The rally consisted of 10 speakers from a variety of departments and clubs. Each speaker delivered their speech to an energetic and responsive crowd.
The first speaker was Professor of History Robert Dean, who said, “Ward Churchill should be invited to speak on campus as originally scheduled. The issue is simple and straightforward. Churchill has been accused, essentially, of a kind of heresy against the religion of blind patriotism. By collaborating with the censors, this university’s administration has violated fundamental principles of free speech.”
He went on to explain that, as a history professor, he has seen this issue before: “The pattern that we see at Eastern and elsewhere, closely resembles that of an early period, commonly known as the McCarthy era. Then, too, university administrators, commonly made solemn pronouncements asserting the principles of free speech and academic freedom, while in practice they protected themselves by collaborating with attempts to silence and punish those targeted as politically deviant.”
The next speaker was Debbie Abrahamson, a Spokane Tribal member and a member of the Shawl Society, a grass roots organization fighting for sovereignty, health, air, water and land rights.
She said that the cancellation of Churchill’s appearance by President Jordan “squashes a student organization’s right to free speech and demonstrates that institutional racism is alive and thriving here on campus.”
She also said that President Jordan’s decision shows that “the only lesson Eastern Washington University provides, by making such a reactionary decision, is Eastern Washington University’s institutional rights supersede any collective or individual First Amendment rights to freedom of speech over its student population,” and that this decision only “serves to foster institutional racism and censorship.”
Amelia Moses, a NASA representative, read portions of an e-mail sent by ASEWU Public Relations Representative Andrew Hill to Ward Churchill concerning President Jordan’s decision and whether he believed that he would be a threat to the EWU campus. Churchill wrote in an e-mail Feb. 28, “I don’t think that my presence will present any particular threat either to me or to the general public.”
Moses read another portion of Churchill’s response to President Jordan’s decision in the Feb. 28 e-mail, “What your prez is doing is abridging not only my right to be heard, but your right to hear me, and both our rights to directly interact … If you like, I could ask my attorneys to file a temporary restraining order in federal court, to prevent his following through on the cancellation.” This was followed by a loud period of clapping and cheering. Martha Toolie, of NASA, was the next speaker and called for the campus community to unite as well as respond to the decision made by President Jordan, “If he is going to represent us, he needs to communicate with us. You can’t lead people when there are no followers.”
Attendees display
signs of disapproval.
Professor of Philosophy Thomas Jeannot from Gonzaga University said that he we might not agree with what Churchill has to say, but that he is an important voice and has the right to speak, even if we do not agree with his literal content. Jeannot went on to explain the controversial essay that has stemmed the nationwide media coverage.
“He is a major intellectual leader of this movement, and he is coming forward as a leader of the American Indian struggle in the United States to express his views about the war on terror and the Bush administration, as we come up on the second anniversary of this war,” said Jeannot. He also said, “It blows my mind that he is coming here anyway.”
Lillian Hungerfor, of MEChA, read a collective letter composed by the members of MEChA that described how the media has influenced the decisions of EWU. “We, the machistas of Eastern Washington University, are outraged that Bill O’Reilly politics have infiltrated our institution of higher learning.”
The letter also posed a series of questions to President Jordan: “We ask you, President Jordan, has popular conservative media influenced your decision to not allow this speaker to speak out for the right of oppressed people? Have the forces of Fox news, who have repeatedly created false statements, including many against our organization, referring to the MEChA as a hate group or the KKK of the Hispanic community, have they put fear in you as well, President Jordan?”
They finished with a demand that President Jordan re-invite Churchill to speak.
Nicholas Russ, an Executive Committee Member of the Black Student Union, spoke next saying: “Who are we to give our power away, and say that somebody else can decide what we can or cannot hear? That’s where our power lies. Our power lies in our resistance, so when we say somebody other than ourselves can make the decision on who can speak on our campus, then we give away power. We give away our voice. We give away resistance, and once we do that we are powerless. And then we are able to be dictated to on a consistent basis, but freedom is all we have.”
Supporters display concerns
over Ward Churchill's dis-invite
and EWU's campus climate.
He continued by speaking about democracy and the right to be heard: “We have to be strong; we have to stand. That’s our power, and if we don’t have that then we allow others to dictate to us. What if someone didn’t like what you had to say? What if someone didn’t like what I had to say? That’s fine, but I still have the right to say it, but I still have the right to say it. Don’t let anyone fool you into believing that democracy is passive resistance. Democracy is bringing my voice to the table, and letting it be heard, and not just letting it be heard, but letting it be equal. And if my voice is not equal, this is not democracy. And if it’s not democracy, then I believe in revolution.” Russ received a loud and energetic applause.
Economics Professor Douglas Orr gave a short speech highlighting some of the things that are happening in American universities.
“Almost every university in the United States has a school of business, and what do they teach? They have got faculty members who teach how to bust unions. They have faculty members who teach how to make your workers work harder for lower wages, and if they protest, how do you suppress them. These things are taught in every single business school in the United States, but then you ask the question, how many of these schools teach how to organize a union? How many of these schools teach how to organize resistance to oppression?” said Orr.
He continued by emphasizing what Professor Dean mentioned earlier. “What is going on with Ward Churchill is the start of what we saw in the 1950s. It is a systematic attempt to drive any voices of opposition out of the university in this country; to give in an inch is to let them get started.”
Shawn Beard, a representative for the ASEWU, read the letter that stated the student government’s position on the Churchill issue. He concluded by saying: “We are calling for the Native American Student Association, faculty organizations and President Jordan in an open dialogue so that we can work this issue out and find a resolution for it.”
Marcus Wallace, on behalf of the group that organized the rally, gave a concluding speech concerning the purpose of the rally.
“The real issue is freedom of speech. It’s not unity. It’s not attack at President Jordan. It is not an attack at the administration. It is freedom of speech, and this is how I know this. We know President Jordan said that he canceled Ward Churchill coming here for security reasons; however, we know otherwise by his actions. Number one, if it was all about security and not freedom of speech, why then, in The Easterner, do we have a story about the administration taking down flyers for the human rights rally that we are at right now? If it was all about security, then we would not worry about that. Also if it was all about security and not freedom of speech, then why isn’t President Jordan here right now? Why is he not the one leading the way to bring Ward Churchill here?”
He concluded by saying that EWU is negotiating and giving in to terrorists by canceling Churchill’s appearance. “Even President Bush says we don’t negotiate with terrorists, but EWU does,” said Wallace.
Pleae join us for the "Rally for the stupid and insane".
I agree with you...I'm sure that in addition to the Review, the PI and other papers in the Northwest will flock to see the thousands... hundreds... ok...handfull of Churchill groupies.
I thought Eastern Washington was the conservative side of the state.
ouch
EWU is on the conservative side of the state but it is still a University which means if there is a liberal in the area to be found, you can certainly find one there.
I can still remember the first class on my first day of college at EWU. The class was Government 101. The prof came in and in his opening statement to the class said: "...I'm a Democrat and I hate the damn Republicans..." He obviously made an impact on me because that's the only thing I can remember from his class. Overall, I feel that I received a good education there and for the most part didn't have liberalism crammed down my throat. There were a few moments however as I've posted here and in an earlier post within this thread.
Holocaust denier?
It is, and 300 students out of 10,000 proves the point.
Targets of Opportunity, IMO.
However his comments at:..." a sold-out San Francisco audience on March 25, Churchill elaborated on his WTC comment, saying Eichmann was a banal technocrat serving an evil system and so were the workers in the towers. Musing about the phrase "innocent Americans," he asserted: "You can prevaricate. You can rationalize. You can justify. You can do whatever you want -- but the one thing you cannot purport to be if you are a conscious being in any sense at all in this country is innocent."
" Near the evening's end, he described lying in bed at night with "delightful visions ... of Madeleine Albright, Jesse Helms, and Henry Kissinger all in a nice neat little row with nooses around their necks."
This guy has soaked up too much acid ..rain!
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