Posted on 04/15/2002 9:44:51 PM PDT by IthacaRepublicans
Bias concerns follow speech
By Joe Geraghty - Assistant News Editor April 11, 2002
The controversy surrounding conservative activist Bay Buchanan's speech last Thursday is beginning to die down. After her speech, in which she decried feminism as a cause of high divorce rates and one of the reasons for the legalization of abortion, more than 20 students approached Campus Safety officers in Emerson Suites to discuss reporting the speech as a bias-related incident.
Those students were referred to the Office of Student Affairs and Campus Life. A number of students met with Rory Rothman, associate vice president for student affairs and campus life, and other members of the Bias-related Incidents Committee.
Rothman said the committee ultimately decided the speech did not constitute a bias-related incident because Buchanan did not threaten any specific person, and she made her comments as part of a public speech. Rothman said he was pleased with the discussion that went on within the committee in response.
Senior Shelley Facente, who serves on the committee, tried to report the incident to a Campus Safety officer at the speech but was told no report would be taken because the speech occurred in a public forum and was not directed at any individual.
Facente said she was upset that a Campus Safety officer was making the decision about whether to report an incident or not rather than leaving it up to committee. She took her concerns to the committee and was satisfied with the discussion that took place among committee members.
Rothman said the committee is now looking at scenarios in which a public speech could be deemed a bias-related incident so the committee will be prepared to deal with future incidents like this one.
"What is a public forum?" Rothman asked rhetorically. "What are fighting words? This all generates very good, challenging, complex discussion."
Trouble began before Buchanan even set foot on campus when the Ithaca College Republicans, who sponsored her speech, posted fliers around campus that warned "feminazis" to beware because their Nuremberg was coming. The Republicans apologized for the fliers at an April 3 meeting attended by more than 50 students who were disturbed by the posters.
"Those posters that were up not only offended me, but scared the crap out of me," said junior Jennifer Addonizio, co-president of BiGayLa. The Student Government Association had suggested at its April 2 meeting that the Republicans consider apologizing for the posters. More than 400 people attended Buchanan?s speech. Many of them challenged her arguments and contentions during almost two hours of question and answer time that followed the speech. After her speech, Buchanan said she thought controversy over the posters was blown out of proportion.
"I think they?re completely harmless," she said. "They were well-intentioned to get attention for this speech."
Brian McAree, vice president for student affairs and campus life, said the posters were acceptable under college policy. At noon on the day of Buchanan?s speech, students held a forum at the Free Speech Rock to discuss the intent of the posters and their effect on the campus.
Senior Joey Cronen said even though the posters may have been offensive, they should not have been taken down.
"It seems pretty obvious to me that you can?t tear them down because they piss you off, especially now when free speech is under attack," he said.
This post is to alert you all to the situation at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York. We brought Bay Buchanan to campus to speak on "The Failures of Feminism". She was tremendous, but now campus radicals are attempting to declare her talk an incident of hate. Not seeing an opportunity there, they have now turned their attention to any future events we may hold.
From the article: "Rothman said the committee is now looking at scenarios in which a public speech could be deemed a bias-related incident so the committee will be prepared to deal with future incidents like this one."
Our story has been picked up by Rush and FoxNews and we're hoping to head the libs off at the pass, before they can declare any public speech they dislike to be hate speech.
From FoxNews.com: When the posters first appeared, the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian Alliance (BIGAYLA), the Student Government Association (SGA) and Students for Women's Empowerment (SWE) immediately demanded that our Republican club be punished.
"When I saw that flyer, I read it as 'Bay Buchanan is here to hang me,'" said Katrina Baker. She said the "Constitution is irrelevant on this campus. We are [a] private [college]. We do not go by that here." Daniel Baker, president of Created Equal: Allied in Fighting Homophobia, said the poster was in poor taste, "especially in Gaypril when there is heightened risk of violence against the LGB community."
Any help that you could provide us would be welcomed, we're a young club facing entrenched leftist radicals. If you have any suggestions, please e-mail us at icrepublicans@yahoo.com.
Conservative blessings,
Kyle B. Clark
Chairman, Ithaca College Republicans
What the heck is "Gaypril?"
Kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it.
Back in the 1960's, as Bill Buckley put it in Up From Liberalism, liberals would defend people's right to disagree with them, but didn't think that anyone did. Now the radicals know that people disagree with them, and will use a mailed fist to crush any dissent. Since they have abandoned the idea of free and fair discussion, they must be opposed with all of the legitimate tools of political power.
Libs spew hate, it = free speech,Republicans point out facts,i.e. feminist are pro-death,that is hate speech.
The truth hurts them libs.
My guess is that this is some idiot renaming of 'April'. Why "there is heightened risk of violence against the LGB community." in "Gaypril", I have no idea.
I think that you have neatly described our current situation, except that you are being too hard on the 'dark ages'.
We had a small discussion about this earlier today, here. And a wide-ranging thread about WTF is wrong with the state of NY here, following one of Joseph Sabia's columns here.
Anyway, welcome aboard, and happy Gaypril 15'th ;)
City of Evil bump.
That's a good start. Two years ago I cut off the university that I went to. They had sent an alumni news letter to my house that had photos of all of the speakers that were on campus for various lectures in the past year. Jesse Jackson was on the cover and every other speaker was either a prominent liberal in the media, a Democrat politician, or some leftist from the entertainment business. There was a whole series of pro homosexual lectures as well. I sent an email to the president of the university and to the fund raising department that was asking for money. I told them that I would never contribute again and cited my reasons why. I have not been contacted since.
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