Two weeks ago, 16 students occupied Bendetson Hall for 35 hours. While there, the police threatened them with arrest for disturbing the peace and trespassing. However, since the sit-in, neither the police nor the administration has followed up with TSAD members regarding disciplinary or legal action.
One student, who stayed in Bendetson for the full 35 hours, said she not heard anything and did not expect any disciplinary charges.
TSAD's protest drew another type of protest, which is now being investigated for possible disciplinary action. While students holed up in Bendetson, senior Mark Sutherland took on a campaign of his own. Irked by what he saw as the moral corruption of the campus and society, and bothered by what he perceived as clear violations of university policies against hanging signs in trees, he began ripping down TSAD (formerly known as Tufts Students Against Discrimination) signs hanging from trees on the academic quad.
Sutherland passed by the protest at Bendetson twice. Both times, he tore down signs. The first time, a student confronted him. The student, a senior, asked him what he was doing and why. The student later filed a report with the police, accusing Sutherland of justifying his actions by saying, "Because I hate niggers, fags, and dykes and this has gone too far."
The accuser goes on to report that Sutherland then asked, "You know how you can soften me up? Have you and one of your dyke friends have sex with me."
Sutherland denies that he said these things, and maintains that, while he did speak with someone on the quad, he did not say any of what the student alleges. He fears that because no one heard the entire conversation, the accuser will make up witnesses.
A spokesman for the dean of student's office declined comment on Sutherland, saying only that the office is investigating, and no charges have been brought. Likewise, no charges have been brought by the Dean of Students office against those who participated in the TSAD sit-in.
Tearing down the signs and speaking with a TSAD activist about his motives were not Sutherland's only troubling actions. In his fight against obscenity and for a safer community, Sutherland has occupied the Tisch women's bathroom, and delivered a scathing editorial in his Spanish class.
Two days after the incident on the quad, Sutherland delivered an editorial presentation in his Spanish 22 class. His subject was gays in the military. In his report Sutherland, who served in the Marine Corps, referred to gays as "homos" and discussed sleeping in a pup tent with another gay man.
"It [was] part of my campaign of self-expression. I gave a radical presentation in Spanish class on Friday," Sutherland said.
According to two complaints filed with the Dean of Students office by students in the class, Sutherland started his report with a joke, asking in Spanish which girl in the class would like to taste his nuts. He then displayed a bag of peanuts.
Sutherland does not deny allegations made in either complaint. "I started by saying how many girls would like to taste my nuts," he said. "Now, this is in Spanish, of course. And then I pulled out a bag of peanuts."
He only takes issue with the translation from Spanish to English. "It's all in Spanish, so what we meant to say maybe different from what we did say," he said.
Throughout his presentation Sutherland referred to gays as both "homos" and "maric??nes." Beatriz Iffland, Sutherland's Spanish professor, defines "maric??n" as "faggot." Although the word was used in literature read by the class, she explained to her students that the word was used in a certain literary context.
"I'm not saying you can't use those words." Iffland said. "I have to accept several points of view in class, but I also have to teach my students how to use the words."
Sutherland pointed out several times that he only used terms he learned from reading chalkings around campus and from class readings.
"These words, homo, dyke, and queer are part of my Tuftonian vocabulary. Not to mention throughout this course we've learned vulgar words in Spanish," he said.
The two students who filed reports with the Dean of Students were so affected by the presentation that they left the classroom.
In addition to the incidents on the academic quad and in his Spanish class, Sutherland staged a protest at Tisch library. The day after a video camera was found in the men's lower level bathroom in Tisch Library on Sept. 26, Sutherland said he waited outside the women's bathroom until it was entirely empty. He asked one women as she left to make certain the room was empty. He then asked her to report to the circulation desk that a man was in the women's bathroom.
He waited in the bathroom until police arrived. Once they did, he explained that he no longer felt safe using the men's room after the discovery of a video camera in the stalls. Instead, he opted for the women's.
Sutherland then says that the police and a library administrator talked him out of being arrested.
