Posted on 07/28/2005 6:32:14 PM PDT by hophead
Protesters disrupted his play by shouting down the actors, blocking the aisles, rushing the stage and threatening the audience, and student playwright Chris Lee expected Washington State University officials to take action. They did, but not quite in the way he expected. After an inquiry, the university's Center for Human Rights concluded that the student hecklers had engaged in an appropriate expression of free speech after being provoked by the play "Passion of the Musical." University President V. Lane Rawlins agreed, telling a faculty member in an e-mail that the protesters had "exercised their rights of free speech in a very responsible manner by letting the writer and players know exactly how they felt," according to the student newspaper, the Daily Evergreen, which obtained a copy of the e-mail. Not only were the 40 protesters absolved of any culpability, but Mr. Lee said he later found that a university administrator had paid for their tickets. Mr. Lee, who said he was so fearful for his safety and that of the cast during the April 21 production that he called 911, is fighting back. He contends that university officials are punishing him for running afoul of the campus's politically correct zeitgeist, and has called on the university in Pullman, Wash., to apologize and renounce its position. "It's like they were trying to teach me a lesson, like, 'Well, Chris, you wrote the show, this is what happens,'?" said Mr. Lee, a 23-year-old senior theater major. "They let [the protesters] censor my show. They're clearly wrong, and they're not apologizing -- they're not even answering." Lawyers for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, who have intervened on Mr. Lee's behalf, have written to Mr. Rawlins twice asking him to renounce the university's support for the so-called "heckler's veto."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
What was the play about? not that it matters, since the hecklers felt free to intimidate and ruin a play for people who paid money to see it. Whatevevr, it must have had an anti-PC theme
The fact that the hecklers were sponsored by faculty is a new low.
vaudine
These students should be free to put on a play. Whatever happened to freedom of expression? This is like life in a totalitarian society. It is inexcusable. If I had a son or daughter at Washington State, I would pull them out.
Yeesh!
This kind of thing cant be done by whites!
Trey Parker and Matt Stone only pull it off because they filter it through Animation.
Here's the president's email address:
rawlins@wsu.edu
I have a feeling that after that description, some FReepers aren't going to be so angry and will start defending the hecklers. But the hecklers are wrong.
"This kind of thing cant be done by whites! "
The writer and producer of this play is a black guy. I have to hand it to him to stand up to this bull sh1t.
Oh really? welp there I go being predjudiced L0L
I assumed that since there was a black backlash he must be white.
Ya learn something everyday.
And now it's...
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay!
He was trying to offend, and he succeeded. He should be thrilled. Bertolt Brecht once said that a play could be considered successful if it started a riot.
If he wants to play in the big leagues, he'd better be ready for the fast balls.
By the way, I say this as a writer myself, fully prepared for abuse should any one of my works incite anger. Would we have heard of him at all if this hadn't happened?
Maybe the play should have had "a montage...gotta have a montage".
Let them write their own play
What would have happened if the audience felt threatened and beat the protesters to a pulp?
If I had paid money to see a play and I didn't like it, I would walk out.
I would also have read something about the play prior to putting down money to see it
Storming the stage is not free speech, it's mob action and charges should have been filed. I don't care if it's a Michael Moore speaking engagement.
It's wrong to heckle no matter who is or what is on stage.
"Mr. Lee's play, a satirical takeoff on Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," had no shortage of critics. The play was loaded with ethnic stereotypes, racial epithets and jokes aimed at Christians, Jews and Mormons, and was advertised as potentially "offensive or inflammatory to all audiences."
I seem to remember people supporting the tearing down of that awful "soldier" scarecrow some libs put up on their private property.
I never made the claim that someone from the right has thrown a pie at anyone, but merely speculating here, I have a feeling some leftists have been shouted down by some conservatives at some time or other. Neither one matters to me because all I said is that some people might agree with the heckling of something they perceive as mocking their religion.
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