Three weeks ago, we acted on our own behalf as concerned students disappointed in our beloved university for bringing such a divisive speaker to campus to celebrate such a historical event. Three weeks ago we protested the Rev. Jesse Jackson outside of McAlister Auditorium during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement.
In 1979, Jackson said he was “sick and tired of hearing of the Holocaust.” Later, in 1984, he employed an anti-Semitic slur, labeling New York City a “Hymie Town.” Recently, in 2008, Jackson said off-camera after a Fox News interview, “see, Barack’s been talking down to black people. . . I want to cut his nuts off.” These are just a few examples of Jackson’s hateful, divisive speech.
The Helmsmen clearly states that “students are guaranteed freedom of inquiry and expression.” and that “one of the marks of a vital university is freedom of inquiry and expression. Indeed, such a freedom is the mark of a free and democratic society. Education, as contrasted with indoctrination, must provide the student with a wide spectrum of views on vital issues.”
While the rules state that we could have picketed with signs and chants, we did not. We spread our views in the most respectful way we knew how: by respectfully handing out literature with factual information, letting the reader decide the truth for themselves.
Since passing out information that exposed the Furman community to the historically divisive nature of Jackson, we have received an outcry of support from the Furman community and around the nation. Students have shaken our hands and sent us thank you emails and Facebook messages. Professors have commended us for civilly expressing our opinions and exercising our rights. Publications like the The National Review, The Blaze, and The Daily Caller have told the story of our protest and of Jackson’s outlandish remarks delivered in McAlister Auditorium.
His outlandish remarks proved our point that evening. Jackson claimed that you can’t be a Christian if you’re conservative, an idea that contradicts the position of most conservatives in the United States today. Furthermore, Jackson claimed that Ronald Reagan sought to hold up the walls of segregation.
Contrary to Jackson’s claims, Reagan’s policies did wonders for the African American community. In fact, policy analyst Joseph Perkins found that Reaganomics had an overwhelmingly positive effect on African Americans. Due to post-Reagan tax cuts, African American unemployment fell from 19.5 percent to 11.4 percent. Under Reagan, the median household income for African Americans increased 84 percent and the poverty rate dropped from 14 percent to 11.6 percent. In fact, businesses owned by African Americans saw income rise from $12.4 billion to $18.1 billion after the policies of Reagan took effect. Moreover, Ronald Reagan made Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday, appointed Clarence Thomas and Colin Powell, and extended the Voting Rights Act for an additional 25 years.
Ironically enough, the true story has yet to be told. While we were peacefully passing out literature, administrators and staff heckled us. They told us to leave. According to the verbiage in the Helmsmen, they actually harassed us. When we cited freedom of speech as our validation to continue our actions, they rolled their eyes and walked away, knowing that we were in the right. In one last attempt, Furman police came to speak with us. The reporting officer admitted that we were properly exercising our rights and gave up the attempt to have us leave the premises. Instead, Furman staff and administration confiscated our literature from students before most had a chance to read the truth.
Confiscating this literature as if it were dangerous for students to know Jackson’s past statements seems, if anything, an admittance of Jackson’s divisive nature. Because his past statements showed the hypocrisy of Furman’s speaker choice, event coordinators felt as though the information was dangerous. Furthermore, the act of collecting this literature was an act of stifling student free speech and expression, something that goes strictly against both the Helmsmen and the Bill of Rights. Finally, “Keeping Hope Alive: Civil Discourse on Campus,” an op-ed published in the last issue of this newspaper, mischaracterized and misrepresented our actions.
The real question at hand is what we do now, looking forward.
Hopefully, next time Furman brings a speaker to campus in order to build bridges, they will choose someone who has done so, not someone who has made anti-Semitic, anti-conservative, anti-Obama, and anti-white comments in the past, as Jackson has. However, Furman has the right to bring the most divisive of speakers to campus, if they so choose. In the same way, students have the right to make their opinions known. We must make room for and praise the value of student free speech.
In order to assure freer speech on campus in years to come, we will be co-writing a proposed amendment for the student conduct code, alongside Mark Kelly, Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations. The intent will be to both better define and expand the role of free speech on campus.
Encouraging freedom of expression on our liberal arts campus should outweigh theoretical benefits of censorship. In fact, unhampered speech, free expression, and encouraged assembly and protest should be valued and highly praised. As political activist Charles Bradlaugh said, “Without free speech, no search for truth is possible… no discovery of truth is useful.”
