Great Liberty, Greater Responsibility: Free Expression at Willamette University

Shannon Lawless

“No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion…but every person shall be responsible for the abuse of this right.” — The Oregon State Constitution, Art. 1, § 8:

This year, the Iranian government arrested 300 women for “un-Islamic dress”; they wore headscarves that were too revealing or clothes that were too tight. Squelching dissent, the Iranian government forced its people to comply with Muslim values (“Uncovered” 2007).

This year, images of underweight models bombarded women in the United States, pressuring them to comply with unnatural standards of beauty. Around 7 million of these women suffered an eating disorder; millions more suffered low self-esteem (National Association of Anorexia Nervosa 2007). The U.S. government did nothing to censor these messages despite their negative influence on its citizens.

In the United States, a country founded on a belief in freedom of expression, we often take for granted that free expression is a given right and an inherent good. We forget that if neglected by its beneficiaries, freedom of speech can wound members of our society as deeply as censorship. As citizens, it falls to us, not the government, to hold each other accountable for the views and values we promote. Only if we recognize and shoulder this responsibility by carefully considering the consequences of our speech can free expression be the gift we presume it to be.

During the 2006-2007 school year, Willamette community members exercised freedom of expression in controversial ways. The “Most Offensive Costume Party Ever,” the Concerned Students for Social Justice protest, and the staged lynching demonstration challenged the Willamette community and forced us to look critically at tenets of our value system. To truly understand the implications of these acts and the University’s response to them, we cannot default to a knee-jerk, emotional reaction. Rather, we must analyze how these acts represent or challenge our values, and what place those values have in a multicultural democracy. To undertake this analysis, I will begin by proposing a basic theoretical framework for evaluating whether the students’ and University’s actions were appropriate or not. This philosophical structure will be the basis for the normative statements I make throughout the essay, and it will reveal why I think the events warrant an in-depth analysis. I will then turn to the events themselves, describing each as objectively as possible. Rumors abound surrounding these events; dispelling them is vital to any productive discussion. Finally, I will discuss what implications the students’ actions and the institutional and community responses hold for a just and peaceful multicultural democracy. My conclusions are no more than my own opinion, but they are backed by research and consideration.

Willamette has never held an essay contest like this one. It was instigated by specific events that cannot be effectively responded to with statements of lofty ideals and broad theories. Neither can they be addressed by a simple reiteration of the facts and policies already in place. We must fuse theory with reality, examining the role of freedom of expression in our society, and then directly applying our insights to what happened at the University this year. I will argue that certain actions by individuals and the institution were appropriate while others were not. I hope these conclusions can bring closure to the events of the 2006-2007 school year and serve as a guide for dealing with future controversial exercises of free expression.

The Weight of Free Expression: Creating our own Ethic

When we speak about controversial issues in the United States, we do more than just exercise our First Amendment rights; we collectively create the ethical system that grounds our society. For this reason, we bear great responsibility for the messages we present. If this idea seems overblown or moralistic, consider the contrast between our country and societies in which speech is government-controlled.

Governments that strictly control expression do so to promote particular values. Mao’s China is one good example. In an attempt to promote a singular faith in the power of the dictator and his policies, Mao’s government forbade any expression that challenged the government. At various points during his regime, the People’s Republic of China banned unique clothing, long hair, any book deemed “anti-Communist,” and realistic assessments of the economy, to name just a few. To flout any of these restrictions was considered a direct contravention of the only permissible ethical system. Governmentsanctioned speech narrowly limited acceptable behavior to conform to a single system of values.

In the absence of strict mandates from the government, the indirect censorship of social pressure plays a critical role in defining our values. The United States Government certainly regulates some expression in the interest of promoting certain values, such as prohibiting slander and libel to encourage honesty. On the whole, however, the US allows a much greater range of expression and values than do governments like Mao’s China. Within the realm of legal behavior, we can choose to practice any of an array of religions with varying value systems, we may openly revere or despise our leaders, and we can dress and assess the economy as we please. At some point, we must decide which of these many options we want to take, and the government will not choose for us.

The lack of government control in the United States does not mean we are left to our own devices. In the vacuum of direct regulation, a subtle system of social norms and pressures pushes us toward certain choices and repels us from others. What sets that system apart from governmental control is that every citizen, in her capacity as a private individual and as a participant in mass media, has a hand in defining what is acceptable and what is taboo. It is in this role, as definers of our own social ethic, that our acts of free expression become truly significant.

While the social pressures that regulate our value system do not use direct force like government controls, we should not dismiss their power lightly. In many matters, we are legally free to speak our minds, yet are restrained by a complex interaction of social pressures. Politics and religions are two such subjects. Large organizations, such as TV stations or churches, often use sophisticated tools of persuasion to inculcate their audiences with particular beliefs. The behavior of individuals, through comments, attitudes and actions, either reinforces the larger organization’s attitude within their peer group or rejects it. A person subject to this combination of largescale and individual pressure may feel affirmed and welcome, or ostracized and mocked, depending on how well she conforms to the social norm of acceptable behavior. Humans are social animals by nature, and to deprive them of acceptance into a community cuts off a vital line to a sense of fulfillment. Some communities have so effectively used the system of social pressure that their members are as hesitant to express certain opinions about politics and religion as Chinese citizens were to criticize Mao or profess religion during his regime. While these pressures ripple out to affect larger American culture, they are most strongly felt in our immediate communities, such as our families, neighborhoods and universities. As such, each member of the Willamette community takes part in a subtle system of social pressure with extreme persuasive value.

Though it may seem onerous to think of all of our actions as morally significant, I am not advocating that we do the impossible or that we take ourselves too seriously. I do think that we should consider not only the immediate effects of our words and actions, but the larger value system they encourage or discourage. We are more than capable of simply thinking through the larger effects of our acts of expression, and when we do so, the added work will prove worth the effort. Particularly in an age when technology allows us to disseminate information to millions of people instantaneously, our statements can have a profound influence on others. We need not agree on what should be acceptable, but we have a responsibility to each other to argue and live with reason and sensitivity. As members of a multicultural society, this guideline particularly applies to condemnation or praise of others. Opinions about what is acceptable are likely to vary widely. It is important to consider the intentions and reasoning behind an action before we accept or condemn it because our statements can deeply affect the thinking and behavior of our fellow citizens.

To promote a just and peaceful multicultural democracy, we must accept our ability to profoundly influence the ethics of those around us through simple words and actions. Exactly which attitudes and ethics would provide the strongest foundation for such a society warrants an essay of its own. But to adequately explain why I commend or critique the events at Willamette as I do, I must mention two values I believe are paramount. First, we must respect knowledge and strive to be educated. If we are ignorant of our history or of the stunning variety of beliefs and practices that characterize our country, we will struggle to react with tolerance to ideas or actions that are alien to us. Second, we must be deliberate and reasoned in our actions and reactions. No matter how educated we are, we are bound to often confront acts of expression that surprise us. Before we judge them, we must thoroughly investigate the reasons people acted as they did; when we act, we must strive to be clear about our motivations and intentions. Just as education and patience in understanding and communicating with others are necessary for a healthy multicultural democracy, they are also important goals of a liberal arts education. Thus, these attributes are doubly applicable to the discussion of controversial acts of expression at Willamette. They are essential to our society and are goals we have willingly taken on as members of the University.

When we examine the controversial acts and the responses to them at Willamette last year, their contribution to our overall value system will help determine whether they were appropriate or not. Do they promote values that facilitate a peaceful and just democratic, multicultural society? I believe when we think through the events, the actual ethical implications are drastically different than many people hastily concluded.

The Most Offensive Costume Party Ever

The recent intense discussion of free expression at Willamette did not arise from a simple upwelling of liberal-minded conviction—it was started by a Halloween party. The “Most Offensive Costume Party Ever” (henceforth, MOCPE) rocked the Willamette community last October, and to have an honest, open and informed conversation about diversity at our University, we must start by acknowledging what exactly happened at the party and the chain of reactions it set off. In my attempt to learn the full story, I referred to information on the Willamette website (http://www.willamette.edu/ president/social_justice/), and corresponded with various involved parties, including President Pelton, multiple attendees, and a host of the party. The following is my attempt to recreate the events as accurately and objectively as possible based on the information I received.

On a weekend close to Halloween of 2006, three Willamette seniors hosted an off-campus party dubbed “The Most Offensive Costume Party Ever,” promising prizes to the students with the most offensive costumes. The party’s intent was satire; it provided a chance to mock the prevalence of political correctness, the stupid themes of many Halloween parties, as well as particular offensive phenomena. The party’s guests rose to the challenge; Hitler, a Ku Klux Klan member, the Twin Towers, and an aborted fetus were among the attendees. At the heart of the controversy were students dressed in black face, one of whom wore a suit and nametag indicating that he was President Pelton. One student videotaped the party and posted parts of it on YouTube.com on November 8. According to a host of the party, none of the attendees knew ahead of time that they would be videotaped. For a short time, the video was on YouTube™’s most viewed list.

President Pelton was informed by a student that the video existed and that he was the target of one of the costumes. He responded by emailing a condemnation of the video to the Willamette community. Images of Willamette students wearing black face and posing as Hitler, he wrote, are “by any reasonable standard…deeply offensive to our community’s values of diversity and inclusion. I applaud the actions of students, faculty and staff who have already expressed their disapprobation of this video and the ignorance and bigotry that under girds much of its content” (Pelton, email of 11/06/06). The video was removed from YouTube™ by its creator soon after the email, and in the following days, two forums were held to discuss the MOCPE. These events were not widely publicized and the party’s hosts were not invited. To express their point of view, the hosts responded with a statement explaining the party’s satirical intent (also available on the Willamette website). They wrote,

When seeing images of Hitler goose-stepping around our party, the only way that one can hold that this supports racism is by affirming that the student that dressed as one of the worst genocidal dictators in history actually agrees with his insane Nazi views. This is obviously a mistaken assumption. Would the student have dressed up as Hitler for the MOCPE if he agreed with the late German? Or does it make more sense (and is it more funny) to assume that he was actually directly mocking everything that Hitler stood for? (Yunker 2006)

According to President Pelton, no disciplinary action was taken against the students because they did not violate a University policy. They did face an outpouring of animosity, anger, and rumors. One host was asked to take a week off of work at Telefund for fear that the party would become a major public issue and higher administration would not want him to represent Willamette. The protest by the Concerned Students for Social Justice, just a few weeks later, was seen by many as a direct reaction to the party. At a teachin organized to discuss social justice and diversity the next semester, antiracism speaker Tim Wise condemned the party at a convocation attended by hundreds of students, claiming that the party’s participants were incurable racists and bigots with whom the rest of the Willamette community should refuse to interact. In sum, although the consequences were not official, they were strong for the students involved.

While particular acts at the MOCPE were ill-considered and crossed the line from satire to stupidity or meanness, I stand strongly in defense of the idea of MOCPE and its hosts. To say that the concept of the party is inherently bigoted belies a simple failure to think through the idea of a Most Offensive Costume Party Ever. The party’s intent is satirical, as its hosts explained, and many students demonstrated a profound understanding of this. One student of Indian descent, for example, explained her Native American costume:

My costume was a Post-Columbus Indian. I wore terribly stereotypical “Indian’ gear, like Disney Pocahontas- tattered brown skirt, no shoes, two braids, a feathered-headband. I had “war-paint’ on my face and a bloody handprint on my top. I had many ideas. Generally, I hate how Americans think it’s okay to dress as an ethnic identity for Halloween. So I put on the stereotypical outfit that most kids wear, then I made it realistic with the blood and torn clothes. I called it Post-Columbus to comment on the bloody genocide of Native Americans. Also, on a personal note, the Indian dressed as an Indian thing I found funny.

This student was clearly aware of historical and current discrimination, and by crafting a costume that embodies this discrimination, she implicitly labeled it as offensive. Moreover, by using satire, she acknowledged the discrimination directly and confronted it with humor, an approach I argue we should admire and try to emulate.

Satire performs several critical functions in a society that values intelligence and humor, and I believe it is critical to the functioning of a democratic, multicultural society. First, satire is widely used to address difficult social issues, and is often a valuable part of the healing process after great social injustice. Last January, for example, the movie “Mein Fuehrer —the Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler,” premiered in Germany, which poked fun at the dictator by portraying him as a sexually impotent, bedwetting, “bumbling baffoon.” The year before, German Rudolph Herzog published a book of Hitler jokes (Rosenburg 2007). Clearly, these acts do not support Nazism but rather continue conversation about Hitler’s regime without wearying people with a constantly serious approach. Most of the costumes at the MOCPE can be regarded in the same way. No matter how much we care about an issue, few people can tolerate the emotional drain of unrelenting solemn and guarded conversation. Satire draws more people to reengage with difficult parts of our history and to learn from atrocities like Hitler’s dictatorship rather than to stamp out conversation about them.

Satire, including the MOCPE, also serves as an important antidote to the political correctness that pervades our society. Political correctness, in American society, means making statements and using vocabulary that is wellaccepted within mainstream culture to minimize offense. Political correctness is not without value; its existence acknowledges sensitivity towards others’ histories and emotions, particularly those of the minority. However, the pressure to be politically correct is often taken to a harmful extreme. People feel so afraid to be “un-PC” when discussing sensitive issues that they either avoid important conversations altogether or make bland statements that mean nothing and lead to no progress. This uncritical discussion is clearly counter to the values of a liberal arts education, which values openness, challenging assumptions, and debate. It would be tragic for political correctness to destroy our ability to understand and appreciate satire. As the hosts explained in their statement, the MOCPE requires us to acknowledge and mock the things we find most offensive. If the attendees were blind to the current problems of racism and anti-Semitism, for example, they would have seen the Ku Klux Klan or Hitler as distant facts of history rather than evocative symbols for hate. Rather than gossiping about the most recent Willamette romance, these students were challenging norms about controversial speech.

The MOCPE also challenges us to think about the place of purposely offending people in a society with free speech. We often use an indirect form of purposeful offense to gain support for a cause; politicians misquote their opponents to offend and rile up their bases, and workers recount a boss’s offensive behavior to dismay their coworkers and build solidarity. In these cases, the speaker benefits from an offense caused by someone else. Direct, purposeful offense is a much braver undertaking, for the speaker shoulders not only the benefits but the burdens of the offensive act. As listeners, confronting direct offensiveness tests our reactions. We must face a situation we could more easily condemn from afar. Do we speak up? Are our emotions backed by reasoned thought? The MOCPE makes us think deeply about these questions.

That said, offense, by definition, is hurtful, and we must use discretion when deciding which controversial acts incite productive conversation and which cross the line between satire and mean-heartedness. The costume mocking President Pelton is a good example of the latter. Rather than mocking something truly offensive, like a dictator who killed millions of people, it targets a human being who caused no such offense. If this costume had been addressed directly in the university-wide criticisms of the party, I would find them much more compelling. The costume of one individual, however, is not a reason to condemn the party’s hosts or their ideas.

The most obvious misstep regarding the MOCPE was posting a video of it on a highly-used public website in association with the University and without the permission of the students in the video. I do not mean to say the video should never have been public; on the contrary, I believe it could, and did for many, perform the valuable functions of satire I previously mentioned. However, in a society dominated by political correctness, it was obvious the party would cause a stir. The students involved should have been afforded the chance to decide whether they wanted to risk the inevitable backlash. While I wish every viewer would recognize the party’s satirical intent from the video’s title, a reasonable person should be well aware that not everyone would understand. Moreover, the general public could not know the generally tolerant and thoughtful nature of the students who hosted and attended the party, leaving them in the dark on a revealing factor about the host’s real intent. I do not think that posting the video was ill-intentioned, but simply not considered much at all. If the video had been presented with more context and had not been publicallypublicly linked to the University, the controversy might have been avoided. The unnecessary backlash caused by posting the video online demonstrates the importance of thinking through the social implications of our actions.

What is a threat to our value system, much more than the MOCPE itself, is a dangerous quickness to condemn without knowing all the facts. Many people reacted this way to the party, but convocation speaker Tim Wise epitomizes this fault. When he condemned the party and its creators, he clearly did not understand the situation or know the students he suggested shunning. If he had, he would have realized that they include intelligent and considerate students who never intended to hurt people, much less have their offensive costumes taken as endorsements of prejudice. If Willamette students took his call to ostracize participants in the party seriously, that would be a step toward intolerance and ignorance, two values a multicultural democracy cannot promote if we desire peace and justice.

The University’s response, publicly headed by President Pelton, is an understandable but less than exemplary use of free speech. The consternation and emotion the President must have felt, as the target of a personal attack, certainly warrants a strong reaction on a personal level. He also faced pressure from the Faculty and Board of Trustees, two powerful groups in the University, to condemn the party. Yet as president of the University, Pelton is responsible for the well-being of all of his students. A nuanced response, one which acknowledged the context in which the party took place and distinguished between its good and bad elements, might have avoided causing a ripple effect of anger toward the participants. Instead, his initial email encouraged us to “express our disapprobation” without further investigation, advice that too many members of the Willamette community followed. Forums to discuss the events were another positive idea, for the party posed many important and intriguing questions. But failing to include students who represented the party in these events encouraged them to become one-sided, unchallenging venting sessions rather than balanced and critical discussions. While President Pelton’s quick condemnation of the party is understandable, it was not an ideal model of how to react in situations of controversial speech.

More disturbing than the University’s response was the reaction of many students in condemnation of their peers. They took the party to be evidence of racism and bigotry at Willamette, inciting righteously indignant criticisms backed up by little critical thinking. While the student protest at Willamette included many different people with a multitude of reasons for participating, in too many cases their primary motivation was to denounce people and actions they misunderstood. We will turn to the protest now.

The Protest by the Concerned Students for Social Justice

A professor commented after the Concerned Students for Social Justice (CSSJ) protest that he was excited to see a fiery, youthful drive for reform in Willamette students, for this spirit has achieved many valuable changes in our society. He is right to embrace the potency of discontent and its great potential for progress. But this passion is easily led off-track and, without reasonable plans, it is unlikely to achieve its lofty goals. Such is the case of the CSSJ protest; its ill-planned and often childish nature counteracted and contradicted the movement’s objectives of improved diversity and tolerance at Willamette. Before I explain why I believe this is so, I will briefly describe the protest. After my analysis, I will discuss the University’s reaction and its implications.

According to one member of the CSSJ, the idea for the protest came from a discussion about how Willamette students talk a lot about social justice but seldom act on it. The students decided to reverse this trend by acting, and planned the protest late into the night. The next day, on Thursday, November 16, 2006, the newly formed “Concerned Students for Social Justice” group arrived in Jackson Plaza wearing red t-shirts and holding signs. They talked to passersby at that site throughout the day. At the beginning of each class period, representatives of the protest abandoned the plaza to interrupt classes, encouraging students to show solidarity by leaving class to join the demonstration. At the heart of the protest was a letter, circulated by email and in print, which listed several demands. Although it is long, I am including the entire letter here because of its central role in the protests, because I believe it embodies the character of the protests, and because I discuss it extensively in the analysis that follows. The letter, which can be found on the Willamette website, reads:

Dear Willamette University,
We are students who are ready to seek change. We will not be attending our work or our classes today, as we are visibly taking a step toward fighting oppression on this campus. Please understand our intentions. We respect the difficulty of your professional obligations and we are inviting each of you to join us in this movement to raise awareness of the injustices that are occurring daily in our community. Today, we are demanding that a Social Justice Council (similar to the Sustainability Council that already exists) be formed, by Monday November 20th, to immediately address the following changes, which must occur on our campus. We would like the first action of the Social Justice Council to be an organized teach-in scheduled before winter break. Announced by Monday, we would like a scheduled meeting with the Board of Trustees to discuss our plan of action.

These are issues that we demand be addressed:

Creation of MOI and mandatory convocations regarding all levels of social inequality and injustice
Expansion of curriculum and faculty addressing sexual identity, race and ethnic studies, and women and gender studies
Creation of an American Ethnic Studies Major
Hiring of a significant number of staff and faculty of color and different sexual identities
Update the hiring practices of administrators, staff, and faculty to include awareness of social injustice issues
Social Justice/Diversity Training required for all staff, administrators, and faculty
Revising admission efforts at increasing diversity at Willamette
Director of Multicultural Affairs to report directly to the President of the University
Adequate funding to enact these needed reforms
Reforming of the Opening Days program to include social justice education
Gender Blind Housing
Creation of a visible, well-funded, and well-staffed Social Justice Office

This is a growing list, knowing full well that there are many other issues that have and will arise when dealing with this topic.

With hope,
Concerned Students for Social Justice
P.S. Please come wearing red in solidarity.

A close analysis of this letter reveals much about the CSSJ’s strengths and weaknesses. I will begin by discussing the weak points. The CSSJ (1) asserts that a problem exists without proving or explaining it, (2) uses rhetoric that alienates its most likely allies, (3) is unclear on what exactly the changes mean, and (4) has no pragmatic plan of how reforms could be implemented. These weaknesses are significant, for if movements for justice are to actually achieve their goal, they cannot have so many pitfalls. I will examine these shortcomings in detail to show where they lack care and thought, and how this hastiness backfires against the very goals of diversity and justice that the CSSJ hoped to promote. I do not dwell on this point to criticize the students involved, but because the errors of the protest teach important lessons about how to achieve social reform.

First, the letter says that the students are “visibly fighting oppression” by not attending classes. Presumably, being expected to go to class is not oppressive, as the students are paying large sums of money for the privilege of doing so. The question remains: what oppression are they fighting? Perhaps the “injustices that are occurring daily in our community”—but what exactly are these? Their letter does not provide a clear answer, and the protestors I spoke with explained injustice with intangible generalizations. I am not trying to insinuate that injustices do not exist. Most people would acknowledge without hesitation that American society is not entirely fair. But the letter makes a strong claim by implying that systemic injustice plagues the Willamette University campus in particular. For those who have found Willamette to be a welcoming place, and vastly more accepting than American society as a whole, it is not sufficient to simply assert that the University is a hotbed for oppression. We need a detailed explanation and proof. If these allegations were put in specific terms, such as “minority students feel that they are ignored in class” or even “the MOCPE demonstrates that Willamette students are not sensitive to minorities,” we could start to have a discussion about whether this is true and how it might be changed. If proof were included (for example, “here are the testimonies of a significant portion of Willamette’s minority population expressing their feelings”), we would be well on the way to understanding the problem and taking action against it. Instead, by proclaiming that people are oppressed at Willamette without explaining how, the CSSJ made many members of the campus feel defensive, skeptical, and impotent to change a wrong they could not even define. Because people felt accused and wanted to avoid being “oppressors,” they often denied outright that oppression occurred. Their alienation stifled productive discussion and embittered potential advocates rather than opening their eyes to a problem. This point leads to the second major error of the CSSJ: its accusatory stance toward the people best equipped to help them.

While the letter is addressed to “Willamette University” as a whole, its demands are directed only toward the faculty and administration. These groups have the greatest influence over change at Willamette and they have historically been the strongest proponents of the type of changes the CSSJ wants. Despite this, multiple aspects of the letter alienate faculty and administration. The word “demand,” used multiple times, implies that they are unwilling to participate in reforms and have resisted them in the past. Many felt hurt by this combative tone; I saw one faculty member in tears of frustration as she explained the insult this demand was to those who have spent years working for more diversity and less discrimination at Willamette. Moreover, many demands ignored the efforts faculty and administration had already made toward increasing diversity. For example, two demands regarded updating hiring practices, but they nowhere acknowledged that diversity has been a goal of hiring for years. The departmental chair’s manual provides detailed guidelines on strategies to recruit minority candidates¹. A Minority Affairs Committee helps departmental search committees attract minority candidates. All position openings include the statement, “Willamette University has made a strong institutional commitment to diversifying its faculty, student body, and undergraduate curriculum. We encourage qualified candidates from minority communities to apply.” This statement has been expanded for next year’s position openings in a further effort to draw in diverse candidates. The effort to diversify has met with some success; during the same year as the protest, Willamette hired an African American professor of philosophy and an African American novelist as the Hallie Ford Chair in Writing. The previous year, Willamette hired a Senegalese, Muslim professor of French. These new faculty and efforts toward diversity do not make Willamette as diverse as we would like, but they are significant and positive steps which should be acknowledged. They also demonstrate that the faculty is in favor of making progress. The CSSJ completely fails to recognize that drawing diversity to a relatively homogenous campus is extremely difficult, and that a lack of drastic improvement does not mean a lack of effort.

The demand that Willamette revise “admission efforts at increasing diversity at Willamette” is similarly ill-informed and caused frustration in the Office of Admission, another potential source of support, whose cooperation is critical to achieving the CSSJ’s goals. Diversity has been a goal of the office for decades, which the CSSJ’s letter of demands never recognized. Among its many strategies for increasing diversity, the Office of Admission pays for some students of color to attend Admission Preview days, prints a Spanishlanguage version of the parents’ brochure and employs some Spanishspeaking counselors, and works extensively with organizations dedicated to equal educational opportunities for youth whose economic and racial demographics are underrepresented in higher education. Although the Office of Admission’s strategies may not achieve our desired level of diversity, they are solid efforts that take energy and funds. They deserve recognition that they did not receive. As Teresa Hudkins, Director of Admissions, writes,

We have provided a great deal of data and copies of publications to several different students working on this research. I’m sorry we have been unable to convince them that we are making every effort to increase the diversity on this campus. Students need to be aware that we are not the only place in the country doing this. The competition among colleges is fierce for students who might make a campus more “diverse” than others. We are always thinking about how we might do better at meeting this goal, but it’s a constant battle. There is never enough time or money to do everything we would like to do (from anHudkins email of 08/09/07).

Considering its desire to improve diversity at Willamette, the Admissions Office should have been one of the first allies of the CSSJ. Instead, it was treated as an impediment to the CSSJ’s goals. The hurt and resentment this approach caused did not increase diversity at Willamette, and the CSSJ was pushed further from achieving its goal by the animosity it created.

Admittedly, the faculty and administration share some of the burden for failing to sufficiently publicize their strategies and efforts toward increasing diversity and social justice among the student body. But the responsibility for investigation ultimately falls to the students who initiated the protest. At a university as small as Willamette, we cannot afford divisiveness among the students, professors and administrators. The strength of the University is based on the close and cooperative relationship between students and faculty. Lasting resentment between these groups would harm not only the goal of improved social justice, but the entire educational process. If the CSSJ is serious about improving Willamette, its members should seek cooperation with those who can actually enact change rather than treating them as enemies. Trying to achieve goals by antagonizing others is an ineffective tactic.

The letter’s third major error was the astounding lack of clarity or explanation of its demands. Does “expansion of curriculum and faculty addressing sexual identity, race and ethnic studies, and women and gender studies” mean adding faculty or educating existing faculty? What does it mean to “update hiring practices of to include awareness of social injustice issues?” What functions would the Office of Social Justice serve? Would the Director of Multicultural Affairs maintain the same responsibilities, and how would reporting directly to the President change his position? In sum: how can we be persuaded by demands that are not even phrased clearly? Without explanation, these ideas smell of useless bureaucracy and empty talk. In a few cases, the protesters actually did have a plan behind their poor word choice. They demanded, for example, “Gender Blind Housing,” a term many students did not know. When I asked, a protester explained that this meant changing policy to allow roommates to be of the opposite sex in University housing, which would avoid the current hetero-normative assumption that same-sex pairs do not have romantic relationships. When explained, the demand seemed reasonable and compelling. Without explanation, many students assumed that CSSJ wanted housing to be assigned with no regard to gender, a very different scenario and likely less appealing to most students. The ambiguity robs the protest of legitimacy and makes the entire affair harder to take seriously. In writing this essay, I have had trouble addressing all of the CSSJ’s agenda because I, like the protesters, still have an unclear understanding of what “social justice” is. I have mostly addressed diversity, as this seems to be the most quantifiable aspect of “social justice.” It is representative of the movement that even its title is unclear.

The fourth crippling error of the CSSJ’s demands is that even when the demands are clear, they generally lack realistic plans for implementation. The most obvious example is the demand for funding. Money is mentioned twice: once in the umbrella request for “adequate funding to enact these needed reforms,” and again in reference to the need for a “visible, well-funded, and well-staffed Social Justice Office.” A moment of analysis shows this could mean an enormous cost, although the demands’ ambiguity makes it hard to come up with any solid numbers. An American Ethnic Studies Major would probably require adding several faculty members. The creation of several new administrative positions, including the staff of the Social Justice Office, would further increase costs. The expansion of curriculum, hiring of speakers for mandatory convocations on social justice, and the development and implementation of Social Justice/Diversity training for faculty would push the price even higher. While some of these recommendations might prove worth the cost, we need to know where the money would come from and an estimated price before we can decide. What the University spends on such programs, remote as it may seem from student life, translates into tuition increases and financial aid decreases. A large increase in cost would make Willamette even more difficult to attend for the diverse group the CSSJ purports to support, for minority communities are disproportionately economically disadvantaged. A tuition increase and its effects are directly counterproductive to the goal of making the student body more diverse. Demanding reform can happen in a night of frenzied-poster making, but implementing it takes discipline and less exciting work. That the CSSJ entirely ignored this reality rendered the protest na•ve and largely ineffectual.

Despite these flaws, certain aspects of the protest merit respect. Most of the protesters were motivated by good intentions and a real enthusiasm for improving the University. The general goal of increasing diversity and equal treatment of all at Willamette is an admirable one that, with a thoughtful and realistic approach, we should embrace. However intangible, an atmosphere of awareness and concern about the diversity of campus is also important. Before the protest, faculty and administration may have felt that they were alone in pushing for recruiting more minority candidates and students, or in advocating education about historically oppressed groups. Knowing that students are also willing to work for these goals gives energy to their cause and can propel concrete changes to happen.

The University’s response to the protest was, especially in contrast, reasoned and respectable. President Pelton’s letter in response to the CSSJ, rather than taking a defensive or combative tone, commended the good intentions behind the protest. He emphasized that students, faculty and administration were united in their goals, saying “I appreciate the efforts of these students and others to reaffirm our commitment to values of diversity and social justice.”² (Pelton 2006, letter). In doing so, he took the opposite approach of the divisive demands. President Pelton’s letter also acknowledged the lack of publicity regarding the existing programs and progress toward the CSSJ’s goals. To address this problem, he briefly described some of Willamette’s current efforts and commissioned the development of a Resource Guide on Diversity and an annual report by the Office of Human Resources regarding the progress toward increasing faculty and staff diversity. The creation of these guides directly addresses the communication gap that divided faculty, administration and student protestors who would have ideally worked together. The President listed several other concrete, clear measures that the University would implement to improve social justice, and acceded to certain key demands, including the creation of a Council on Diversity and Social Justice (CDSJ). Unlike the CSSJ’s tactic, President Pelton’s approach modeled a constructive response to controversy in a multicultural democracy.

The Council for the Development of Social Justice (CDSJ), formed by the University in response to the protest, is an interesting mix of the positive elements of the protest, such as its spirit for change, and its ineffectual points. The council is comprised of members of all different campus communities, including students, faculty members, admissions staff, alumni representatives, as well as Law and MAT school representatives. Because of the need for so many different groups to cooperate, the Council moves slowly. Like the protest, it also lacks the authority to implement many (if any) changes. But Council members are convinced that the CDSJ does not meet in vain. Charlie Wallace, leader of the Council, explained that the group’s job is to “coordinate and advocate” for change at Willamette. The students’ enthusiasm, he believes, can lead to suggestions for improvement and motivate those with power to take reforms from the idea stage to implementation. With the University’s support, for example, the Council planned the teach-in in March which featured several successful, educational forums to discuss issues like diversity and discrimination. The CDSJ offers “mini-grants” for students with ideas on how to improve diversity and social justice at Willamette. Overall, the CDSJ is a positive result of the protest, which continues its strengths while avoiding its most destructive flaws.

The “Lynchings” Demonstration

A while after the CSSJ protest, a Willamette community member took a strikingly different tactic in the discussion about diversity. On a Friday, students left their dorms to discover mannequins hanging from various locations on campus. The “bodies” were accompanied by signs which told the story of a recent, racially-motivated lynching in the United States. The signs went on to discuss the ineffectiveness of the CSSJ protest in creating an awareness of diversity, and a promise to continue similar acts to create “conscious tension” on campus. The demonstration shocked and offended many community members, and the mannequins were quickly taken down by Residence Life.

My earlier comments about purposeful, direct offense are even more relevant to the lynching demonstration than to the MOCPE. Purposeful offense can be effective, but can also be so hurtful it does not serve to convey a message. To stage lynchings on campus toes this line; the bodies’ shock value undeniably garners attention and discussion, but the use of a historical symbol for hate could be too painful to be effective. But when we consider the values needed for a healthy multicultural democracy, the fake hangings become much more understandable, for they serve to educate us about a current reality vital to understanding one another. As the sign points out, racial violence is not only a historical but a present phenomenon. The need for a widespread realization that racism still exists in such an extreme form, especially in a community that has largely been sheltered from such violence, trumps the need to protect our own emotions.

The staged lynchings, like the protest, could have been better planned. Perhaps most important, the stories accompanying the bodies should have been more obvious and widespread, for they are the difference between the demonstration as a symbol for hate and as a tool for education. Perhaps faculty could have been warned so that the figures would have remained in place longer and the message they were to convey could have reached more students. But, on the whole, the lynching demonstration still performed a function the protest did not; it provided compelling evidence that “oppression” takes a concrete form that we should care about. We may not feel compelled to act against vaguely-defined oppression, but we are roused and angry when we discover that a real human being suffered and died because of intolerance and discrimination. Unlike the protest, the lynching demonstration is unlikely to make specific people feel accused but is rather a starting point for a discussion which we can all agree on: racial violence such as this exists and it is unacceptable. The realization that racism can, even now, escalate to such a tragic and bloody crime motivates us to discover and root out its subtler, but insidious, forms in our own community. As it was, the Willamette community seemed jaded in the aftermath of the protest, and the lynching demonstration failed to provoke the conversation and action that it should have. Despite this reaction, the lynching demonstration has a power and insight that the protest lacked. I hope discussion about discrimination on campus will follow one valuable lesson of the lynching demonstration, which is to begin to understand oppression by learning about concrete, undeniable instances of it. It is from such instances that we can discover the true nature of the problem and begin thinking of solutions.

A Wiser University

This essay will be published during 2007-2008 school year. Though the effects of last year’s events will spill over, the new year signals a fresh start. New minds have joined the University, and new leadership has the opportunity to shape the movements of the 2007-2008 year. If we use our analysis of the MOCPE, the CSSJ protest and the lynching demonstration in an effort to improve our use of freedom of expression, the controversy, high emotion, and turmoil of this year will not go to waste. I hope that the conversation about difficult topics will continue, but that it will be characterized by tolerance and consideration rather than division and condemnation. I hope that the students, faculty, administration, and staff channel their energy and excitement about increasing diversity and decreasing discrimination into effective action by making clear, realistic plans and acting on them. I commend the professors, administrators, staff and students who have already done so; we should acknowledge and praise our colleagues for their current and future efforts. I hope we will continue to shock each other into seeing the harsh realities of our world, and continue to reason with each other until we have ideas for mitigating these realities. In this way, we can mold a value system appropriate for a community in which we would like to live.

Conclusion

My evaluations of the controversial incidents at Willamette last year can, and should, be debated. But if we wish to be responsible citizens in a peaceful and just multicultural democracy, we must debate with the intent of understanding, not of condemning, and only after investigating the facts as thoroughly as possible. If we use this method, we will prove worthy of the simultaneous gift and burden of free expression, for we will have used our liberty to promote a value system of tolerance and justice in our country. I do not hope that my essay comes to the “right” conclusion (if such a thing as exists), so much as that it provides a model of this reasoned, responsible approach. I can testify that in writing it, my opinions have been shaped, shattered, and reformed more than I at first considered possible.

The most interesting exercises of free expression are rarely easily accepted; if they were, our country would be quite boring, and our freedom to speak and act, meaningless. The Most Offensive Costume Party Ever, the Concerned Students for Social Justice Protest, and the lynching demonstration are, beyond a doubt, fascinating uses of liberty. If we refuse to be governed by our immediate and emotional reactions, we can find value in aspects of these events that originally disgusted us. We can avoid mistakes that hurt worthy causes by discarding ineffective approaches to advocacy. We can embrace satire and react to it calmly, plan clear and cooperative reforms, and use our freedom of speech to draw attention to ugly realities we should recognize. If we take these lessons from the controversy at Willamette, we will have used our freedom of expression wisely: as a step toward a fair, harmonious, and diverse democracy.

[1] — From the Chair’s manual, prepared by the Dean’s Office: “Suggestions for Increasing Minority Applications for Faculty Positions

[2] — This letter is available online at http://willamette.edu/president/social_justice/2006-11-18.

References

Hudkins, Teresa. 2007. Email to author dated November, 18, 2006.
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http://anad.org/22385/index.html

Pelton, Lee. 2006. Email to Willamette University community dated November 6, 2006.
———. 2006. Letter dated November 18, 2006, http://www.willamette.edu/president/social_justice.2006-11-18/.
Rosenberg, Steve. Germans Learn to Laugh at Hitler. BBC News, January 11, 2007.
“’Uncovered’ Women Target of Crackdown” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2007.
Yunker, Matt, Graham Bell and Alex Ose. “response from the Creators of “The Most Offesive Costume Party Ever,’” Willamette University, November 15, 2006, http://www.willamette.edu/~aose/response.html.