Yesterday, Berkeley students angered by the Daily Californian's recent handling of race stole the press run and dumped it in the trash. They also tried unsuccessfully to invade the paper's offices. Many of the papers were salvaged and returned to their dispensers, at which point they were stolen and trashed again. The offending article detailed how a UC Berkeley offensive lineman had been arrested for allegedly fracturing a fellow Cal student's skull with a bottle at a frat party Saturday night. There is no mention of race in the piece at all--but the article carried a picture of the lineman, who is black. According to Calstuff, the protesters felt that the Daily Cal had "negatively stereotyped blacks as violent" and that it had also "misrepresented" the student. Protesters were joined by members of the radical student group BAMN (By Any Means Necessary), who were incensed by the Daily Cal's publication of a cartoon of "North Korean Diplomacy," which depicted Kim Jong-Il wearing a cheerleading outfit and chanting ""We Got Nukes, Yes We Do, We Got Nukes, How 'Bout You?!" BAMN called the cartoon "racist, anti-Asian caricature ... drawn with slanted, virtually non-existent eyes, jutting teeth, and an upturned, pig-like noseóa mimicry of the bigoted xenophobic anti-Japanese cartoons of World War II." The Daily Cal editor-in-chief, Rong-Gong Lin, responded gently but firmly to charges that the paper is racist in yesterday's (stolen) paper.

Newspaper theft is a fixture on Berkeley's campus, where even the mayor has been known to get in on the action. But the folks at Berkeley are not alone. As a misguided tactic of student resistance, newspaper theft is acquiring quite a bit of cachet across the country. But at some schools, such tactics--as extreme as they are--are inadequate to express the displeasure of offended readers. At Santa Rosa Junior College, for instance, death threats have emerged as a chosen method of expressing distaste for the student paper's editorial decisions.

Six weeks ago, the nineteen-year-old student editor of the Oak Leaf ran an opinion piece entitled "Is anti-Semitism ever the result of Jewish behavior?" The piece was written by a SRJC student known for his controversial opinions on Israel; it took a hardline pro-Palestinian stance and, according to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, "echoed many of the themes in white supremacist literature" (Indymedia reprints it here, but has disabled comments because people were posting threats). The editor says she ran the piece not because she agreed with it, but because she thought it might spark debate and because the editorial she had planned to run was not turned in on time. "The goal was to get a lively discussion going," she told the Press Democrat. "I'm sorry for any pain it caused. That wasn't the point of publishing it. It was for debate purposes. ... I've heard (McGuire's) opinion on campus and thought it represented a vocal minority. ... I had a disclaimer ... and it was on the opinion page. I thought I was covered." She ran the piece by the paper's faculty advisor and got his approval ("It was racially charged and there were a few inflammatory things," he told the paper. "But it wasn't libelous and it didn't incite people to violence. ... The First Amendment isn't there to protect agreeable stories."). Then she printed it. That's when all hell broke loose.

Members of the campus Jewish community took the piece as a personal assault. "It's an echo and a reality. There are people on campus whose relatives have tattoos from the death camps," Dianne Smith, an anthropology professor and president of Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa, told the Press Democrat. "They had a right to publish it. We know hate speech is free speech. ... But what about an apology, not that we're sorry we printed it, but that we're sorry we hurt you -- we're sorry we dredged up these memories." (The Oak Leaf did not apologize for running the 750-word piece--but it did run some 5,000 words' worth of response from readers, plus a couple of additional pieces by staff writers who outlined the reasons for publishing the piece and explained the constitutional issues involved.) But calls for apology, and even for the resignation of the paper's editor, were among the mildest responses from readers of the offending article.

Some expressed their outrage more bluntly. The Oak Leaf editor began receiving death threats signed by the "Hate Task Force." These threats informed her that she was being watched. Fliers with swastikas on them were left on her car. So the police locked the newspaper's offices, blocked the mail slot, and offered to escort the editor while she is on campus. Meanwhile, a campus chat room set up to discuss the events was also closed down when self-identified white supremacists from around the country began flooding it. Those groups have also sent packets of anti-Semitic material to SRJC faculty and staff.

It's a huge, ugly mess. But the faculty senate knows the real problem lies with the editor for deciding to print the piece in the first place. The senate plans to ask the Communications Studies Department to report on "how it teaches professional ethics to the students and what its academic standards are," and there are discussions, too, about how to increase faculty editorial oversight over the paper. The senate met yesterday to discuss what could be done to ensure that the students running the paper have better training (particularly in journalistic ethics) and that the faculty have more power to control what gets printed in the paper. The assumption seems to be that the editor showed an unethical lack of concern for the sensibilities of Jewish faculty, students, and staff; that a proper training in journalistic ethics would have prevented the student editor from running an inflammatory opinion piece; that the job of the press is to protect peoples' feelings rather than to seek the truth; and that the First Amendment does not apply to the school. As communications studies professor Ed LaFrance told the Press Democrat, "You cannot do prior censorship. ... They put it under the cloak of ethics. But it's politics and those politics have to do with slashing the First Amendment." This will be one to watch.

UPDATE: Santa Rosa Junior College's student paper has been at the center of free speech flaps before. Here's a long and fascinating 1995 piece from Wired for those with a historical bent and a few extra minutes.

UPDATE UPDATE: The SRJC faculty senate has ruled.

By my count, every man, woman and child in America has now been called "racist, sexist and homophobic" at least 10 times. This is supposed to be an indictment that renders the guilty unfit for human society. Could it be that repetition has finally worn out this tactic? Will we finally just become bored with the latest public figure hung out to dry and sent off the re-education camp?

BAMN means "by any means necessary" and obviously refers to the willingness to use violence.

And, yes, Erin... I promise not to respond to the troll again. It's pointless.

Stories like this are really depressing. I'm currently reading Jonathan Rauch's Kindly Inquisitors, which he wrote 10 years ago, talking about the threat to free speech and liberal science posed by "fundamentalists, egalitarians, and above all humanitarians" who believe that words cause injury, and therefore should be controlled. He closes by writing "What hurts us is not wrong-thinking people but propoganda and ignorance; and unfettered criticism - liberal science - is the cure, not the disease."

Stories like this make me fear that things are getting worse, not better; that the left-wing assault on free speech is succeeding in ways that the right wing assault no longer can.

I love this country and think the 1st Amendment is the keystone of our civil society. That said, stuff like this makes me want to put my head in my hands, sit in a room, and never speak to anyone ever again. I think clusterf*ck is too mild a word for this situation.

Cheer up folks. These incidents prove in the most positive and dramatic way the founders' wisdom in enacting the Bill of Rights. And they remind us of the vigilance required to keep those rights safe from not just misguided punks and budding totalitarians, but from the far more ominous machinations of our sometimes less than benevolent elected and appointed government officials.

If you want to get excited about transgressions against the 1st Amendment, then the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill is just the ticket. Passed by Congress, signed by the President and now found in large part acceptable under the Constitution by two of three judges in D.C., the bill outlaws certain forms of political speech in a bid to protect incumbents.

It is cynical, immoral (in the context of our civil religion) and illegal. But it is the law. And every one who voted for it, signed it and upheld it took an oath to uphold the Constitution, including that part of the First Amendment that states, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech."

That the Supreme Court's ultimate verdict on this law is impossible to predict is both depressing and alarming.

1. Stu, as to McCain Feingold - agreed. My theory on campaign finance is as follows. I sssume that all federal elected officials are prostitutes and are for sale to the highest bidder. I don't want to limit their fundraising - simply let me know who has bought their services and for how much. Post it on line immediately and let me figure out the implications on my own.

2. Stephen - Agreed - by any means necessary carries with it the implication of violence. BAMN's jumping to the defense of the Korean community is ironic given the level of atagnosim between Black and Korean communities in L.A. and New York. Strange bedfellows indeed.

2. MD - also agreed. I wish we had more Zenger's to defend but alas we are sometimes left with college editors whose judgment as to what is worth publishing (from a critical not a speech perspecive) leaves something to be desired.

4. Mattj - your post is relevant to some random thoughts I have been having on attacks on speech. I note with great interest the assertion that the left wing assault on speech is or has the potential to be far more effective than any right wing assaults. It seems to me we are witnessing a two pronged attack on speech. First we have attacks on 'social' speech (i.e. speech deemed racist, sexist, heterosexist, etc.). These attacks in the form of speech codes (in Canada it carries the force of law) and spring mainly from the left. We also have attcks on political speech (the Patriot Act being a prime example - although I realize many here might disagree). These attacks have sprung mainly from the right (Ashcroft springs to mind here).

I realize the above is a gross simplification and laced with individual exceptions (such as Barr and Armey opposing the Patriot Act) on both sides of the fence but wonder if anyone has any thoughts in this regard. I would also be interested in seeing if anyone can object to one type of attack on speech but not the other.

"[T]he Academic Senate ... issued a mildly worded resolution calling for the Department of Communication Studies to review its curriculum and ethics." That is pretty mild. You can review your curriculum and ethics, and conclude that they're OK as-is. In fact, it's a good idea to review all sorts of things on a periodic basis.

Which is why controversial articles that ask hard questions are a good thing. I can see how hurtful the subject of whether Jews' actions justify antisemitism could be to some people, and hopefully if it would be too hurtful for someone to bear, he or she could figure that out from the headline and not read the article. I think part of maturity is the ability to do some deep soul-searching on sensitive issues, knowing that the possible outcome is a seachange in one's personal philosophy. The act of stealing and throwing away newspapers that challenge students' beliefs is a rejection of questions that they probably are afraid to think about because they're afraid of the conclusions they might have to draw.

Stolypin: My lament wasn't so much directed at the editor. I do agree that a bit more editorial discretion might have played an important role here, had it been employed. But, I was really just looking at the groups involved here: we have an editor trying to spark debate, a writer with pro-Palestinian views who is trying to justify anti-semitism, Jews that are rightly upset (although it appears some are not expressing their outrage in productive or legal ways), white supremacists flooding a chat room (how'd they get invited?), and the "adults" in charge -- their response? Abrogate the First Amendment in the name of preventing the hell of all of the above. It is hell, but I'd rather be in this hell than in the one where free speech doesn't exist.

And re the campaign finance law: I've never been so disappointed in Congress, Bush, and now two judges. Nude dancing? Flag burning? All protected speech. Issue advocacy close to an election? Ban it! The Founders are spinning in their graves.

Here in Santa Rosa, we have recently been reading about this now-national controversy in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, a New York Times-owned daily that's the primary print source of information for most of the people of Sonoma County. More than six weeks after publication of McGuire's opinion piece in the SRJC Oak Leaf, I found and read it for the first time today, on the web.

SRJC is fundamentally a big two-year vo/tech school, that used to train young people for nursing and law enforcement. Today it turns out employees for whichever trades and industries the local corporate fat cats are currently backing through the "Economic Development" departments of the City of Santa Rosa and County of Sonoma. The Oak Leaf, its student newspaper, is rarely seen off campus, much less read.

I was bemused by the PD's coverage of the McGuire piece, because it didn't make sense. We were told that there had been vandalism and death threats, and unnamed "white supremacists" were involved, so the Oak Leaf office had been locked, and even its mail slot sealed. The Academic Senate would consider policy changes to prevent the Oak Leaf from printing inflammatory items that might incite this sort of dangerous behavior in the future--such as more instruction in journalistic standards and ethics.

But why would groups like that be so interested in an opinion piece in a little-known student paper, that questioned Israel's treatment of Palestinians, and U.S. support of Israel? And wouldn't groups like that support McGuire and the Oak Leaf Editor? If there had been vandalism and death threats, who was doing it, and why?

I, for one, am still waiting for some credible answers. If I don't get some, I will presume that various interests on the SRJC campus overreacted to McGuire's opinions--perhaps primarily because of the ill-chosen headline--and are just using the piece as a pretext for limiting freedom of speech on campus.