← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Bardamu
Thread ID: 16905 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2005-02-23
2005-02-23 03:55 | User Profile
[url]http://www.insidehighered.com/insider/hate_at_carnegie_mellon[/url]
Hate at Carnegie Mellon
An appearance by Malik Shabazz at Carnegie Mellon University last week has infuriated Jewish students, who say he not only devoted a university lecture to attacking them, but broke university rules and asked that Jewish students identify themselves as Jews before a hostile audience.
A columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who managed to stay at the appearance when other journalists were forced to leave, wrote: "Shabazz travels with a retinue of young men and women in jackboots, arm patches and berets. One wandered about with a nightstick. Another snapped photos of white people in the audience.... Try to imagine Farrakhan in Nuremberg."
Shabazz could not be reached for comment Monday. Nor could members of the black student group that organized the appearance. Carnegie Mellon officials said that they tried to persuade the students not to invite Shabazz, who has been criticized as an anti-Semite not only by Jewish organizations but by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the university decided that its commitment to free expression meant that the students were given the final say.
Michael C. Murphy, dean of student affairs, said in an interview Monday that the "tenor of hurtfulness and hatefulness" by Shabazz had upset many students at the university. Murphy was preparing for a town meeting to discuss student reactions, and for many private meetings with students and others who are concerned.
"This was hate," said Aaron Weil, executive director of the Hillel Jewish University Center of Pittsburgh. "At one point, he asked all the Jews in the room to raise their hands and say who is a Jew and then he asked who is a Zionist and the people with him told these students, 'I'm watching you.' One of our students was in tears."
Weil stressed that Hillel had not asked that the speech be banned, or tried to disrupt the appearance. But he said that Jewish students feel threatened by the fact that Carnegie Mellon let Shabazz and his entourage violate university rules about weapons during an appearance in which he repeatedly criticized Jews. Among other things, Shabazz suggested that Jewish people aren't really Jewish.
In terms of violations, Weil noted that people were searched for weapons going into the lecture. But members of Shabazz's group had nightsticks visible during the appearance. Murphy, the Carnegie Mellon dean, acknowledged that university rules bar private individuals from bringing nightsticks to campus events. He said that he knew of only one nightstick that was present, and that campus police officers made a "discretionary judgment" not to remove it. Murphy added that the officers "kept a close eye" on the person with the nightstick and that it was never used to threaten anyone.
Weil and students also reported that organizers of the event set up two lines to get in -- one for black people and one for white people -- and that very few white people were admitted. Students reported that they were told that the line for black people was for members of Spirit, the black Carnegie Mellon group that sponsored his appearance, but that many non-students who were black were let in, while white Carnegie Mellon students were kept out.
Murphy said that the lines were not organized by race. Rather, he said it is common to let students groups that sponsor events at the university give priority to their members when seating is limited. Off-campus groups co-sponsored the event with Spirit, Murphy said, so their members were allowed in the priority line. Still, he said he understood "how some people may have misinterpreted" the two lines.
Weil said that Jewish students and others were particularly dismayed that Carnegie Mellon police helped Shabazz and his aides remove television and radio reporters from the event. Weil said that the reason he and others believe Shabazz has a right to speak -- and the reason that the university offers for allowing him to speak -- is because of the First Amendment's principles of free expression. So why, he wondered, would the university then help to have reporters excluded?
Carnegie Mellon policy, Murphy said, is to allow those appearing on the campus to decide whether they will allow news media coverage, and he noted that performing groups frequently bar the recording of their appearances. He also said that one student reporter, who was initially removed, was later let back in by organizers of the appearance.
As for Shabazz asking Jewish students to raise their hand, Murphy said that was "troubling," but that he assumed that the students at the talk knew of Shabazz's reputation, and that those who were uncomfortable identifying themselves as Jewish would "just not respond."
Carnegie Mellon has not been known as a campus where Jewish students feel mistreated. Weil, whose Hillel center serves Jewish students throughout Pittsburgh, said that the university has been "a warm community," and that discussions started recently about adding Kosher dining options.
But Weil added that the Shabazz appearance (for which the university provided space, but not money) came just a few weeks after a university-sponsored lecture that was highly critical of Israel and that another such lecture had been scheduled to take place, but was postponed to a later date.
"I think the Jewish students know that what they are seeing in Shabazz is not Carnegie Mellon. But there is a sense of disgust and anger," said Weil. "If the university is trying to promote free speech and education, how is this part of the program?"
Shabazz makes periodic campus appearances, currently as the national chairman of the New Black Panther Party, which includes lists of particularly disliked white people (called "Devils, Whiteys, Honkys, Crackers") and of black "traitors," a group that includes both Colin Powell and Henry Louis Gates. Shabazz quotations about Jews are maintained on a Web site of the Anti-Defamation League. And the Southern Poverty Law Center includes him on a list of "40 to Watch," which primarily features white supremacists and neo-Nazis.
Murphy said that when he discussed the Shabazz speech with the students who planned it, they said that they had asked Shabazz to talk about the importance of education and the responsibilities of black students, not about his views on Jewish people. He said that the students "believed" Shabazz would "give a different speech than the one he gave."
He said he hoped the controversy would offer students a lesson: "There's an enormous responsibility that goes with freedom of expression."
ââ¬â Scott Jaschik
2005-02-23 04:53 | User Profile
Carnegie Mellon officials said that they tried to persuade the students not to invite Shabazz, who has been criticized as an anti-Semite not only by Jewish organizations but by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center.
lol
2005-02-24 00:49 | User Profile
Yeah, that was pretty funny. [QUOTE]As for Shabazz asking Jewish students to raise their hand, Murphy said that was "troubling," but that he assumed that the students at the talk knew of Shabazz's reputation, and that those who were uncomfortable identifying themselves as Jewish would "just not respond."[/QUOTE] And some genuine common sense from a college administrator!