A hearing to address a sexual harassment complaint that senior Iris Halpern filed against The Primary Source two weeks ago has been postponed from today until Monday.
According to Dean of Judicial Affairs Veronica Carter, scheduling difficulties caused the delay.
Supporters of Halpern gathered in the Crafts House last night to make posters for the hearing. They plan to show their support for Halpern outside the closed hearing with slogans such as "stop looking at my breasts," and "keep your first amendment off my body."
Halpern, a senior, filed complaints against the Source with both the Dean of Students Office and Tufts' Office of Equal Opportunity. She alleges that the Oct. 11 edition of the magazine contained two comments referring to "well-endowed female SLAM members" and "oh-so-tight tank tops" that referred to her body.
The issue also included a cartoon that Halpern said is a degrading caricature of her breasts. "They showed my breasts everywhere and made references to my body," Halpern said after filing the complaints.
Halpern and her supporters argue that the published material constituted sexual harassment, saying that despite the defense mounted by Source Editor-in-Chief Sam Dangremond, this type of speech is not protected by the First Amendment.
"Lots of people support Iris," TFA member Liz Monnin said last night. "The Tufts Feminist Alliance definitely supports her."
Sam Dangremond denies the allegations. The specific reference in the "From the Elephant's Mouth" section, he said, "referred to the clothing, not to her body or to her anatomy."
Halpern is a vocal member of the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM), a campus organization lobbying to raise wages for Tufts' OneSource custodians. Previous issues of the Source, a semimonthly magazine, have criticized and ridiculed SLAM's politics and members.
According to Halpern, Dangremond admitted in a phone conversation that the cartoon depicted her body and that the written material specifically referenced her. Dangremond denies making those comments.
According to the Tufts Policy on Sexual Harassment, anything that "creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive environment in which to work or to learn" including "offensive jokes and comments" and "display of pictures of a sexual nature" may constitute sexual harassment. The policy does not specifically mention or provide guidelines for University publications.
