As another school year comes to a close, members of the Tufts community will undoubtedly remember 2006-2007 as a year in which discussions of race, discrimination and free speech gained intensity and urgency, following with the Dec. 6 publication of "O Come All Ye Black Folk" in The Primary Source. Last month, with tension still high on campus, the magazine published a page about Islam and its practitioners that many considered derogatory, offensive and misguided.
Throughout the previous months, issues of freedom of speech and expression have come in direct conflict with the university's harassment policy and stated objectives of creating a safe and non-hostile environment. The Committee on Student Life, upon receiving a complaint for each of the two pieces against the Source, recently ruled that the magazine's staff must always attribute all of its content to specific writers and recommended that "student governance consider the behavior of student groups in future decisions concerning recognition and funding." With consideration to the facts of this case, the Daily strongly condemns the CSL ruling as an infringement on rights of expression with dangerous implications for open dialogue and freedom of the press on campus.
Our condemnation is by no means an endorsement of the Source's content. Freedom of speech, while protecting even highly offensive content, does not mean that publishers of that content are exempt from being held accountable for their words. Yet holding others accountable must not mean threats, either implicit or explicit, of censorship; it must not mean tying funds to "behavior"; it must not mean dictating the style, format or attribution of content. The freedoms we treasure are most honored when we hold others accountable through words of our own, through debate and through the preservation of an open forum for ideas - even ideas we find objectionable. Sadly, neither the Source nor the CSL have been successful in molding the environment at Tufts in a constructive way.
The Primary Source, through its misguided humor and parody and its inflammatory statements, has failed to spark the debate that its editorial board insists that it intended to. The carol did not turn students' sights on the contentious notion of affirmative action, and the most recent page did not lead to a discussion of religious violence and the battle between mainstream Islam and its fundamentalist fringe. The Source staff should realize that their tactics often squelch debate in the realms they claim to illuminate; instead, debate turns to the magazine itself, its rights to publish and the judgment of its authors. In exercising its freedom of speech, therefore, The Primary Source has inadvertently acted inimically to its stated objectives.
The CSL, by contrast, is setting a dangerous precedent by its punishment and recommendations. The decision represents an inappropriate attempt to clamp down on free speech at Tufts, and its vagueness is troubling. Recommending that funds be connected to "behavior" should frighten everybody on this campus who is truly committed to freedom of expression. Their verdict grants an ambiguous power to those in control of funding to differentiate between what they consider constitutes bad behavior as opposed to a merely unpopular or disagreeable message. The decision places a higher premium on the notion that people should not be offended than on the fundamental right we have to express our beliefs, even if they offend. In addition, it has the potential to curb the free flow of ideas at Tufts and to arbitrarily set limits as to how open our forum for discussion can be. It is also unclear as to what will happen to the Source if it continues to publish anonymous work. It is contrary to the aims of an open and equal campus to selectively dole out the privilege to publish anonymously to only certain publications on campus. All student journals and papers should be subject to and protected by the same regulations.
As the Tufts community moves forward and continues to wrestle with these difficult issues, it is vitally important that we respond constructively and positively when we encounter writing and speech that we find objectionable. Curbing freedoms and attempting to control the messages of others on campus is inappropriate and destructive in the long term. Setting a precedent for the entire intellectual atmosphere at Tufts based on the unfortunate and irresponsible exercise of free speech by one group of students is dangerous and contrary to the values for which Tufts purports to stand.
