The University has been drawn into the national media spotlight following two clashes that occurred last semester between The Primary Source, Tufts' conservative publication, and liberal activists.
The first incident occurred on Oct 2. when Juniors Elizabeth Monnin, Lou Esparza, and Adam Carlis were found guilty of harassing then-Source Editor-in-chief Sam Dangremond at the cannon. Monnin and Carlis appealed the decision and were acquitted of their Probation I status.
The second incident, involving an in-house sexual harassment charge filed against the Source by Senior Iris Halpern, ended when the Committee on Student Life found the Source not guilty of sexual harassment. Dangremond later apologized to Halpern in a Nov. 22 editorial. "I regret that you were hurt by comments published in this magazine," he wrote.
The controversy has drawn attention from both mainstream and non-mainstream publications across the country. In December, The Boston Globe ran two articles detailing the incidents.
A Dec. 25 Globe article offered that "Sam Dangremond and his magazine have become the center of a contentious battle over whether freedom of expression includes the right to hurt people - to be, as he puts it, 'mean for a reason.'"
Speaking about the media coverage, Reitman said, "some has been good and some has been ill-informed. The Globe [article]...was decently written," he said.
The article touched on both sides of the issue, pointing out that Dangremond's critics "say the magazine has soured the tone of political debate on campus. Junior Adam Carlis, a liberal activist, said that as recently as his freshman year, leftists and right-wingers enjoyed cordial relations, and even met in a kickball game. No longer."
Dangremond felt that the article's reference to Carlis as a "liberal activist," rather than as one of the students charged of harassment at the cannon, was a "large journalistic oversight."
In response to the coverage, Halpern said, "The media has a really hard time distinguishing between 'being offensive' and 'harassing someone.'"
The incidents have also been covered in lesser-known publications. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) ran an article on its webside that criticized Tufts' handling of the cannon incident.
Source Editor Emeritus Joshua Martino published an article on Frontpage.com, a conservative online publication, outlining his account of the incident, eliciting an array of supportive remarks on the site. Martino was also interviewed by several radio stations across the country.
These cases and their ensuing hearings have enlivened the debate over the limits of free speech for the Source and the University as a whole. "There has been controversy on college campuses since they were invented," Dean of Students Bruce Reitman said. Echoing his comments to the Globe, he went on: "It is important to me that people be able to speak freely and that people should be accountable [for what they say]. They have to know they are going to get rebuked."
Reitman also emphasized that the very nature of freedom of speech inevitably leads to hurtful speech and actions. Even so, "Tufts isn't ashamed to be a place where these dialogues go on," he said.
Several Tufts alumnae who had learned of the clash reportedly sent University President Larry Bacow an e-mail supporting the Source and threatening to withhold donations to the University.
According to Dangremond and Halpern, these incidents have also had a negative effect on their college experiences. "I need things to calm down a bit this semester," Halpern said.
Dangremond said that he was exhausted and mentioned that last semester's events had a negative effect on his grades. He also said that he would not make any major changes to the way he directed the Source. "I still maintain that we don't target individuals needlessly," he said. "We target individuals who put themselves in the public forum."
In addition, he said he was pleased with the way his publication handled the situation when Halpern charged them with sexual harassment. "Because we were in the forefront of our controversy, we were able to make freedom of speech a bigger issue on campus," Dangremond said.
Halpern had a different view of the events. "This campus needs to start talking about sexual harassment, among its other injustices, without using my case as a case study," she said.
This is not the first year that contentious free speech debates have arisen at Tufts. Last year, Tufts Officials asked Facilities to erase Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) pride chalkings from the ground in front of Bendetson Hall and remove banners from campus. Facilities also painted over a message on the cannon that read, "Don't ideologically molest my kids with your rainbow propaganda," painted by Mark Sutherland, who was later arrested for failing to obey police officers who asked him to stop painting the cannon during daylight hours.
