Stickers proclaiming "imagine a campus free from sexism" were placed on over 600 copies of The Primary Source on Monday in what some speculate is a protest of the contents of the latest issue. The incident was the latest in a controversy between the Source and campus activists that included a sexual harassment charge against the magazine and several complaints to the Dean of Students' Office.
Source editor-in-chief Sam Dangremond said that the stickers may have been in protest if the Source's acquittal on charges of sexual harassment. The latest issue was mainly devoted to mocking two recent campus judiciary proceeding against the magazine and its editor. Three weeks ago, the Committee on Student Life (CSL) dismissed sexual harassment charges against the magazine. And during the first week of November, three students - all members of the Coalition for Nonviolence and Social Justice - were found guilty of harassing Dangremond at the cannon in October.
Dangremond filed a report with the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) and the Dean of Students Office over the placement of the stickers. He also filed a complaint several days after the CSL decision that boxes containing the last issue of the Source were stolen.
"I think it's pathetic vandalism," he said last night. "It's an obvious attempt to deface our magazine and try to impose someone else's methods."
Many of the stickers allegedly covered the word "not" in the magazine's headline "Not Guilty," which referred to Danrgemond's acquittal. No one has claimed responsibility for the placement of the stickers. Iris Halpern, who filed the sexual harassment complaint, said that it is likely the action of individual students voicing concerns.
But Dangremond has his own opinion.
"We all know who makes these stickers and who distributes them," he said. "These people skirt the law and avoid responsibility." Dangremond maintains that he did nothing wrong because the magazine's comments were within the realm of free speech.
Halpern said that the Source is being hypocritical with its response to the stickers. She feels they are nothing more than a way by which students can voice their opinions of the magazine's message.
"This is a mode of freedom of speech," she said. "That's [the Source's] platform, and this is a response to get the point across... it's letting people know before they open the magazine that it's sexist."
Halpern said the latest issue of the magazine displays the most offensive issue yet in terms of its treatment of issues relating to sexual harassment.
"It's just a personal agenda magazine right now," she said.
Lou Esparza, a member of the Coalition and the leftist publication Radix, assisted Halpern in her fight against sexual harassment on campus. He was also one of the three students involved in a clash with Dangremond at the cannon last month. While Esparza has a supply of the stickers in his possession, he said he did not use them to deface the Source's issues and disagrees with their usage in this context.
"It's a bad idea," he said. "The Source antagonizes people, and putting stickers on the magazine is just going to antagonize more people."
