There was a flood of indignation after the event. Here's a sample of letters in the student paper. A lot of people whined that the event was "immature" or that it hurt the school's reputation. A lot of the letters included the phrase, "I support free speech, but..."
These people desperately need to relax. Yeah, this event was dumb. But if you just walk away instead of standing there and getting angry, this whole thing is a lot less newsworthy. And if you think that your reputation will be tarred forever because you went to the school at which this occurred, then you need to figure out how to carve out your own identity in life.
The administration of Texas A&M does deserve a little credit here. Usually, universities are quick to shut down offensive speech, and for most universities, conservative = offensive. A&M, however, did not shut this down. Plus, the president sent out an e-mail that merely asked for "respect," rather than condemning the students. YCT subsequently had a make-up rally where they threw eggs at a list of Obama policies, rather than the candidate himself. People were still indignant, however.
I would like to give special lily-liver recognition to the A&M College Republicans for this letter to the student newspaper:
While the College Republicans acknowledge the freedom of speech for all students, our organization has played no role in the YCT demonstrations in Rudder Plaza throughout the past week, nor do we endorse these events. Our organization remains dedicated to elevating political dialogue on campus, increasing civic participation and promoting Republican values in a constructive and respectful manner.I went to an A&M CR meeting once, and it was incredibly boring. It featured an endless parade of candidates for dogcatcher, county judge, and other local offices. The job of a campus political group is to advocate an ideology and bring like-minded people together, not to advocate for local offices that nobody cares about, and that most A&M students can't vote for, since they are registered back home. For CR to completely throw YCT under the bus wins them nothing. At least YCT was trying to promote dialogue and draw attention to their views. While the event might have been juvenile, at least it wasn't staid and boring. I don't think CR likes the competition.
YCT consistently holds events with the purpose of being offensive and inflammatory. That's what they do. They wanted to get attention and it worked. And just like YCT has freedom of speech that lets them hold stupid demonstrations, the people who were offended have freedom of speech to say so.
ReplyDeleteRachel said it perfectly. YCT is always purposely juvenile and offensive, and I have the right to express my irritation that my University is connected to that.
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn't you support a more productive dialogue instead of childish antics?
I agree people have the right to complain about this, and I agree this event was not very serious. My point is that the overreaction to this is way over the top. If people would just walk away instead of writing letters and complaining to the University, this wouldn't be such big news.
ReplyDeleteYes Rachel, the people who were offended have freedom of speech to say so, but the original event was ended not just because those opposed were verbally but because they were physically preventing the YCT from continuing by throwing eggs at YCT, standing in front of the picture, blocking people from participating, etc. It doesn't matter how stupid or hateful or ____ (insert anything) you think the YCT's event was - no one else had the right to physical prevent it from happening.
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I applaud the University for allowing them to have it again, because if I remember from my past work with student services, an organization is typically only allowed one MSC permit per 2 week period (with exception for student elections I think). That could no longer be true, but if it is, it means that they were given special permission to hold their event again.
I see your point. However, when YCT set the tone by being jerks, it encouraged other people to be jerks back. Again, I'm not saying it was right, but they were deliberately trying to provoke a reaction, so that's what they got.
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