The Primary Source receives $20,000 per year from the Tufts Community Union to operate. That $20,000 comes from your Student Activities Fee.
One of the main pillars of a democratic society is a free press and the ability to engage in openly critical discourse of the government, which I fully support. But the Primary Source is not about thoughtful political exchanges. It is wrought with racism, bigotry, and anti-gay and anti-woman statements.
It engages in personal attacks on students and administrators that are vicious and meant to intimidate readers into being silent while their civil rights are being violated.
The Senate should not use student money to fund hate. A publication that is supported by less than .1 percent of Tufts students should have its budget trimmed down so that this money can go towards causes that represent the needs and wants of the other 99.9 percent of students.
Student funds should not be used to propagate the oppression of minority students on campus by funding a publication that publishes openly hateful and bigoted articles. The Source has the right to be published and disseminated on campus, but it is not entitled to use Student Activities Fees to do so.
Twenty thousand dollars per year to publish hate. A few quotes from its pages:
"Tufts should not engage itself in the interest of advancing feminism." ("Tufts University-Democrats-MA," by Nicholas Boyd. February 2006.)
"Of course, it is hard to think of low life expectancy without thinking of homosexuals." ("Summers Says Sayonara," March 2006.)
"Americans should continue their transition into the 21st century with pride about their advancements and without Black History Month." ("Desegregating History," by Allison Hoover, February 2006.)
"Most of the Arab world is run by oppressive dictators that keep its public illiterate, preventing their people from being able to read and interpret ancient documents for themselves." ("Cartoon-Gate," by Jordana Starr, March 2006)
From my perspective, this is about equity in funding and accountability of the media. The Tufts Daily is published without the use of student funds, and is read by and supported by the majority of students.
I have yet to read an edition of the Source that has represented the views of the majority of students, or even Republicans, on this campus. So why does this publication get so much of our TCU money?
To put this in perspective for you, the Multi-Racial Organization of Students is a group which gives support, a voice and a community to students with more than one cultural or racial back ground. Their budget is only $880 per year, and 44 percent of the campus is non-white.
The Tufts Democrats have a budget of $3,000, and 95 percent of the campus is composed of Democrats. ALAS, which represents eight percent of the student body, has a budget of $6,800. The Pre-Legal Society has a budget of $675. The Tufts Feminist Alliance has a budget of $6,800, and more than half the students here are women.
Part of the reason that the Source gets such a huge budget from the TCU is that it intimidates any voices that might rise in opposition. We are so used to opening it up and seeing our classmates and leaders being ripped to shreds with personal attacks that we fear we might find our own name or picture on those pages one day if we say something about it.
Our TCU funds this practice. We also are given the impression by the Source that since there are so few Republicans at Tufts, we need to compensate for that by tolerating their hateful publications and rallies.
We don't have to tolerate it, and we shouldn't have to be bullied into using our money to support racism, sexism and homophobia.
In 2005, Dean of Students Bruce Reitman and Matt Pohl were referred to as "buffoons" who "should be ashamed" of themselves for an effort by Pohl to stand up against the Red Cross's anti-gay policies on campus. "Matt Pohl's undergraduate career at Tufts has been marked by ridiculous self-obsessed activism."
Democrats, according to the Source, "have a problem with anyone possessing a strong set of morals (similar to the ones on which this country was founded) and a belief in God." ResLife and its director, Yolanda King, have been the victims of numerous verbal assaults for refusing to provide lists of former RAs and not granting interviews with them. According to the Source, "King acted merely out of spite for the Source, it is likely she is purposely stifling the Source's investigation into ResLife and its practices."
One has to wonder if the same scrutiny would have been applied if she was not a black woman, and what expertise the Source used in its own article, which was based entirely on the speculative comments of a student who wished to remain anonymous.
The Tufts bookstore came under fire last month for selling a publication about gay men and relationships. According to the Source, what the management "failed to understand, however, is that the Tufts Bookstore should be held to higher intellectual standards than the average Barnes and Noble."
One cannot help but speculate what standard of journalism and publication the Source holds itself to when it is proposing censorship of media outlets and discriminatory policies in our bookstore.
One thing I absolutely agree with the Source about is that TCU money should be spent in a way that is beneficial to the entire student body. I think that the first thing we should do is make the Source stop being dependent on handouts from the student body, and apply to it the same anti-discriminatory codes of conduct used for the rest of the student body. There are groups on this campus that actually help students get ahead in life that could use an extra $20,000 in their budget.
Given that the entire purpose of this publication is to bash women, minorities and the political and religious beliefs of the majority of individuals on the campus, I do not think it should receive such a large portion of my activities fee to propagate hate and oppression. These are not conservative values, and it is disrespectful and ignorant to suggest otherwise.
Do not let fear make you an unwilling participant in the propagation of the Source's hatred by standing by and allowing it to go on. Tell your senators to revoke the Primary Source's funding.
Anne Stevenson ("The Elephant's Foot") is a senior majoring in political science. She is an active member of the Tufts Democrats.
