Preface
“In each instance students used satire with the intent to provoke the community to consider a variety of important issues.”
This collection of essays on the consideration of freedom of expression is the offspring of conflict. Conflict on a college or university campus is, most often, a good thing, for, as William Blake reminds us in his diabolically dialectic prose poem, Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93), “Without Contraries is no progression.”
During the course of the academic year 2006-07, events on and off campus led to good and useful community debates about the limits of freedom of expression.
Two events are notable:
On Halloween 2006, several Willamette students organized, hosted and attended an off-campus party whose theme, “The Most Offensive Costume Party Ever,” elicited many on-campus conversations and exchanges about diversity and social justice at Willamette. The organizers said that their purpose was to use satire as an aid to heighten awareness about diversity and social justice by turning familiar images of bigotry and hate on their heads. And yet the overwhelming majority of us encountered the party as a video—that is to say, as an artifact rather than as the thing itself—posted on YouTubeŞ, the popular free video sharing Web site, which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. The video showed several Willamette undergraduates, posing, among many things, in black face, as Hitler, and other scenes and images that deeply offended some of those who viewed it, without a context in which to comprehend the ironic intent.
A second event occurred in March 2007 when an undergraduate student organization—sponsored, as we later learned, by the Office of Residential Life—created what it called 30 Days of Tension: a program that, according to its lead organizer, was to create a series of events on campus whose purpose would be to provoke the campus community to contemplate, according to the organizer, “issues of oppression.” Its installation of lynched human figures hanging from trees near the academic quad conjured the horrific image of the lynchings of African-Americans and predictably ignited a spirited public debate—much of it electronic - among faculty, students and staff about the VIII educational value of the installations. Reactions were wide ranging: some argued that there are certain images and tropes so horrific and offensive to humanity that they should never be invoked, even with the intent of raising awareness of noble ideals; others viewed the installations as art, noting that some of the world’s greatest art and literature has the capacity to elevate the mind to embrace enduring and universally human themes through shocking and powerful images that upset our sensibilities; and there were those who reacted strongly when the figures were taken down, arguing that their removal was emblematic of the “silencing” or muting of the voices of oppressed and socio-economically disenfranchised people.
In each instance students used satire with the intent to provoke the community to consider a variety of important issues. In each instance, the absence of a clear and unambiguous context in which to consider these images led to consequences that were neither intended nor anticipated by the organizers and those who participated in their creation. And in each instance, debates about social justice were co-joined—at times, even drowned out—with debates about the freedom of expression.
No doubt, each event tested the certainty of our understanding of freedom of expression within the context of the public satire and the complex dimensions of public self-expression and art—a test that I view as salutary for academic communities like ours.
Each awakened in our community questions about what Robert Frost called “big ideas,” framed by compelling arguments that competed with each other in our understanding and allegiance to them: What, if any, are the limits of freedom expression beyond those already established by the courts? What happens when this cherished American right (is it a “right” or a “privilege”) collides with the felt need to be protected from speech or expression that causes deep psychological hurt or emotional damage?
After the lynching installation, I received a lot of advice, much of it predictable and well intentioned. One person said, “Make it stop,” and I wondered, of course, what is the “it” that I was to stop: The wonderfully provocative and thoughtful debate? The unsettled feeling and sense of dislocation that many of us felt? Or more to the point, should I stop the opportunity for personal growth and moral enlightenment? Another person asked me to “weigh in” and take an official University position on an issue for which, in my view, there was no official position to be taken except to promote—rather than censor—the deliciously bewildering dialectic we commonly refer to as the “teachable moment.”
For indeed, this was a “teachable moment,” if there ever was one.
It is commonplace for presidents of liberal arts colleges to remark on our collective responsibility to uphold the ideals of liberal learning—the substance of which consists in the recognition of basic problems that confront our world, in the knowledge of interrelations and distinctions in issues and subject matter, and the comprehension of ideas from diverse viewpoints - for the liberal arts is the education of free people.
On this latter point especially—the comprehension of ideas from diverse viewpoints—we note that the capacity to express oneself freely without the threat of censorship is foundational. For if the freedom to engage in exchanges of ideas—no matter how chimeral or downright offensive they might be—is suppressed, all of the other substantial values that nurture and sustain the educational process are without meaningful consequence.
And yet, these happy truisms are often more complex, nuanced, baffling and bewildering that we college presidents would publicly like to let on, especially when you throw into the mix healthy doses of youthful exuberance unchallenged by experience and historical perspective, smart and learned faculty, well-intentioned administrative staff, modern day satire and ironic humor as well as powerful electronic technologies that are instantaneous and asynchronous.
It was in this spirit that I invited faculty, staff and students to write discursive essays on the role of freedom of expression in a multicultural and democratic society. I have read each of the essays and am pleased by both the breadth and depth of the individual efforts. Some are finely researched; others reflect personal beliefs and experiences.
Taken together, they speak well of our commonwealth of learning.
The Dean’s Council solicited, read and selected the essays that follow. I wish to thank them for taking on this assignment at a time of the academic year when calendars are already crowded and over burdened.
This collection will be published both digitally and in book form during spring semester, 2008.
Because I have such great confidence in our intellectual community, I plan to issue an annual challenge to the members of our community to write about a theme, topic or question that bears on a fundamental aspect of our educational purposes. I have asked the Dean’s Council to collaborate with faculty, students and staff to identify a worthy topic that will form the basis of a collection of essays to be published annually.
It is my hope that these several volumes will, over time, establish a historical record of a compelling vision of what we could be if we are truly open to what Matthew Arnold called the best that is known and thought in the world.
Lee Pelton
November, 2007