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At Lewis & Clark College we have been dealing with a related but slightly different case.  A Chicano student posted an anonymous poster that was meant as a critique a Hawaii club poster featuring what he thought was a racist caricature of a Maori warrior.  The Chicano student's poster used a black face image to draw attention to what he perceived was the racism of the other poster.

Several people on campus were offended by the second poster, and when the student came forward to the administration, he was charged and found guilty of hate speech, harassment and disorderly conduct.  The hate speech charge was dropped by the President when she found no evidence of racist "intent".  And finally, six months later, as a result of pressure from faculty, his record was expunged.

In response to the expunging of his record, an African American student put up posters with an anti-semitic image on it, along with swastikas, and text that critiqued what he felt is the too liberal free speech policy at the school.

What these incidents show is that it is not always clear what is and is not racist.  The use of racist images to assert anti-racist messages has a long and distinguished history.  Nonetheless, the images hurt and offended people on campus even though they were misinterpreted.  It is difficult for any policy to adequately address the complexities of interpreting images and speech.  Hopefully these incidents become moments to have broader discussions about the real underlying problems of institutional racism in our society.

posted 2 years, 7 months ago
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Even if Sam did have sex with someone who would turn 18 in a few weeks, are we really so concerned that we should go through a public investigation and force him to resign? The law that he is accused of breaking is a minor misdemeanor offense. If a politician lied about smoking marijuana, would we call for their resignation?

The reason this whole thing is seen as a big deal is that our society cannot deal with sex, and especially homosexual sex. And most importantly, there is absolutely no evidence that any "crime" has been committed.

Many people in Portland support Sam, and think he shouldn't resign. See the facebook group "Support Sam Adams" : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=46090272767

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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