Freedom of speech and personal safety are basic rights we all hold dear. We work hard at Colorado College to ensure both. A recent campus issue is a case in which these principles of good compete.
On a morning in late February, students, faculty and staff arrived at CC buildings to discover fliers, posted anonymously, that included in bold type the operational specs of a sniper rifle. The flier also contained other references to guns, chainsaws and a “Fight Club” quote that concludes, “… the survival rate for everyone is zero.” And this happened within days of the horrific Valentine’s Day killings at Northern Illinois University, where five students died and 18 were injured when a former student with a shotgun and two handguns fired into a lecture hall.
The flier contained the name of the purported group that published it, but a check with the campus activities office showed no CC group by that name. My office fielded several calls from students, faculty and staff who were concerned that the fliers constituted a threat. Because we couldn’t determine who posted them, or even if they were affiliated with CC, the fliers were removed. I issued an all-campus email asking the authors to come forward. Fortunately, two students did come forward quickly. They said their fliers were intended to satirize a Feminist and Gender Studies publication.
They have every right to create a parody. But they chose to do so in what I believe was an irresponsible manner. They posted their parody anonymously, which is a violation of a community standard. And second, they apparently thought that featuring the sniper rifle specs and references to guns, chainsaws and survival rates was merely a macho expression; they didn’t consider how it might be misconstrued as a threat to personal safety on campus. An initial student conduct ruling found that they violated the college’s standards; no sanctions or punishments were issued. The students have been granted an appeal.
Each time there has been a shooting on a college campus – whether at Virginia Tech, where 33 people died and many more were wounded not even a year ago – or just days before these fliers appeared, at Northern Illinois, my phone rings and rings with calls from worried parents. They ask, “What are you doing to ensure the safety of my child?” I feel their fear and concern. This time, the calls came from students, faculty and staff.
I have been a staunch defender of free speech on this campus since the day I arrived here. I defended it in the face of alumni and community pressures when Hanan Ashrawi spoke on campus. And I will continue to defend it. I defend our students’ right to make their case. But first and foremost, I will always do what I can to maintain the safety of this campus. For without that, we would find our freedom of speech truly at risk.
30 Comments
Glad to have your statement in light of editorr’s comments in Rocky Mountain News this day.
Sending, with a stamp on it, a remembrance of CC in the late ’40s. This was sent to alumni office and The Calalyst a few weeks ago. It is pasrt of my “memoirs” cover eight decade on this orb.
Bill murray
My son is a freshman at CC and I cannot begin to tell you how happy I with the academic environment CC offers him. I am a big fan of virtually all aspects of CC. I have been following this controversy after talking to Jay, and now I have read both original publications and the subsequent coverage in The Catalyst.
I appreciate your response in this blog. And while you make some valid points regarding student safety, I must respectfully disagree with the tone of your response.
In this instance the values of unfettered speech and the encouragement of free exchange of ideas should be the paramount value. Any perception that the school is discouraging the free flow of ideas could be very damaging to the school. Also, I think the school should be very careful about leaving a perception that a particular ideology is receiving protected status.
Good luck, I am sure that mediating these competing issues is a major challenge. I hope in the future the school presents a more thoughtful approach.
Charles Hobbs
There’s much more to this story than you’re telling, isn’t there Mr. Celeste. If you are to be considered a respected academic leader, then perhaps you should begin by displaying a simple sense of fairness and objectivity in this, rather than portraying only one side of the fight. Namely, your’s, which is, rather un-academically, one-sided and close minded.
The context you paint pertaining to the discovery of this flier is over the top in its “mysteriously threatening and terrifying” tone and foundation. Its false, clearly, and should be called out as so. For it is this very perspective that you use to weave your own opinions and leanings as objective facts, rather than simply what took place before ALL eyes.
That’s the very definition, if you will, of a “high school mentality”, and your case simply falls apart from there in your “description” of this set of events.
Then you wrote this in your shallow defense of your rush to judgement in the whole affair:
“And second, they apparently thought that featuring the sniper rifle specs and references to guns, chainsaws and survival rates was merely a macho expression; they didn’t consider how it might be misconstrued as a threat to personal safety on campus.”
Thank God sir, that Thomas Jefferson himself did not cave or withdraw from his own hypothetical and very understandably dark ruminations of “how others may falsely interpret his pen” when conceiving the very document that spawned not only this country- but the very entitlement that you are currently sacrificing in a selfish and coddling preference to your own overly judgmental, knee-jerk political preferences. Or perhaps worse than preference even- but mere convenience.
Which, this situation is beginning to possess the bouquet of. At least to me, from the outside.
Be wary, sir; your cowardice is showing. It was most certainly not that attribute that wrote the document which paved the way for this Country that you now pitch under the oncoming Greyhound.
I find your rationalization of this incident quite absurd. This incident would have made excellent fodder in the Indoctrinate U. documentary. I suggest a discussion with the university’s lawyers on the First Amendment and “parody” (as well as a clear-eyed examination of the feminist publication’s language and a fair reading of what constitutes “hate speech.” Opps, no such thing when it applies to boys!
Dear President Celeste,
Having had the honor of serving as your Information Officer at the US Embassy in New Delhi, I find myself thoroughly flummoxed by your remarks and actions here.
A university, more than any other place imaginable, must be the locus of the battle of ideas. Thin skins learn to grow a little callus. Narrow minds should be learning to become more open.
There is nothing threatening in the ‘Monthly Bag’ flyer except to that well-established group willing to be outraged by the fact that people hold a variety of opinions, not just the one they themselves hold.
I sincerely hope that you are able to instruct the thin-skinned ones on the real meaning of freedom of speech. Judging by this incident, though, I’m unfortunately no longer sure that you can do that.
You’re kidding, right?
You’ve made it obvious that freedom of speech is not something that Colorado College holds dear. “An initial student conduct ruling” means that your college just voted out free speech. Your college has made a mockery of its anti-discrimination policy. “On a campus that is free and open, no idea can be banned or forbidden. No viewpoint or message may be deemed so hateful that it may not be expressed.” Oh really? So does this only apply to people who dance in the streets after the September 11 attacks? You’d rather support a spokesperson for the PLO in their rights to free speech than support your own students. How can you consider your college to be a nurturing environment for students to explore their boundaries when you don’t protect their rights to free speech? Parody and satire have been held up by the US Supreme Court as free speech, but you think it’s your right to negate that.
The bottom line is, some people WANT to be offended. They look for threats where there are none. Spend some time actually with your students, you’ll realize that. Students shouldn’t have to temper their speech based on how it might be “misconstrued” – else men on campus would be considering the ‘vagina dentata’ reference on the Monthly Rag’s newsletter as a threat. Obviously some of your students need to grow thicker skin.
Dear Sir:
I suggest you immediately proceed to your library…your college actually has one I assume…and remove any books that might have weapons data in them. Cleary those too are a threat.
Your personal credibility is done…you know that right?
Now I know you will see my military title and immediately dismiss anything I might have to say, but to be quite frank, I actually serve a useful function.
Cordially.
SM
I am sorry sir, but you acting the complete moron in this instance.
IT’S A PARODY. Here’s a buck. Go buy a sense of humor.
You appear to be a pin-headed bureaucrat who can’t tell the difference between an obviously-satirical publication and a real threat of violence. Did you even read the document in question? Or could you not be bothered, and you simply heard a description of it before you rendered your knee-jerk reaction to it?
You need to apologize to everyone involved in this situation. You might also do well to invest in a dictionary and a few DVDs worth of “Mad TV,” “Saturday Night Live” and “Monty Python,” so that the meaning of the word “satire” becomes clear to you.
You know, I believe any further effort on my part will be as wasted as what I’ve already written. You are in damage control mode, and like most bureaucrats, you probably cannot bear to admit that you made a mistake.
Good day, sir. I truly hope no one on your campus ever finds a book of dirty limericks. You’ll have to lock down the entire school! God forbid anyone has a sense of humor these days!
P.S. FYI–I am an NIU alumnus, and I see nothing wrong with the fliers.
And you are the head of a college?
Are your students too stupid to think for themselves?
Apparently, you think so.
What happened to the schools I was educated in? Why is Victimology your main concern?
Very sad…
Puhleese!! Spare me the standard fare from the feminist left and their lapdog feminized male toadies.Why is it o.k. to trash males and then act insulted and hurt when someone hands these not some feminine women their ass on a platter?
Maybe we should be looking for some truly masculine men for such offices as you occupy.
And just when I thought the ebb of my respect for academia had reached its nadir…Congratulations on presenting yourself as utterly obtuse for the sake of sexist political correctness!
Your post is very amusing. A staunch defender of free speech? More like a staunch defender of one group’s “more equal” status using a contrived perception of risk. Animal Farm has arrived. Thanks for the illuminating insight and for helping me cross Colorado College off my Colorado kids’ “higher education” list.
For an excellent point by point refutation of President Celeste’s intellectual slight of hand about the supposed “tradeoff” between free speech personal safety, follow this link to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education website:
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/torch/
I will be suprised if you have the courage to post the link to FIRE, because that would require you to pay more than lip service to the importance of free speech and robust intellectual debate. I hope that I am wrong, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Could you please point me to the Supreme Court precedent that classifies satire as “fighting words” or an example of an “imminent threat”?
This is important as obviously everything I’ve ever read or been taught about the First Amendment, and everything I’ve taught my own Political Science students must be wrong if you are right.
Dick,
you are on the wrong side of this one – you violated the free speech guarantees of these young men.
You punished these young men by outing them, then forcing them to apologize in a forum you forced them to chair.
You will lose the resulting lawsuit.
All your politically correct “blame guns” approach has done is create an “easy target zone” for insane killers. They know there are few/no armed people on campus, and that, if they want to be infamous, that’s where they should go on their rampage to inflict maximal body count.
You never hear about mass murders at gun shows, gun ranges or in police stations, do you?
And you never will. Because the good guys are armed, there.
Think about it.
To conflate an obviously jocular piece of undergraduate tomfoolery in the form of a parodic leaflet with a threat of violence is obviously the height of idiocy, if it is sincere. What does a jibe at a humorless militant-feminist tract have to do with mass murder at Northern Illinois or Virginia Tech? Clearly, not a damn thing. But I suspect that this daft rationale is offered to disguise Mr. Celeste’s true motivation, that is, to avoid annoying a powerful pressure-group, the hard-core feminists, at all costs. The fact that they take instant affront at any mockery, or even mere disagreement, is transmuted, in their minds, or at least in their spin-machinery, to the existence of an improbably dire threat of some kind. But jumpy administrators like Celeste take the fact that a send-up has been absurdly “misconstrued” as damning evidence against the satirists, rather than as evidence of the silliness or willful obfuscation of the targets thereof.
Celeste, it is clear, is unfitted for his job and ought, if he has even a shred of conscience, to resign before he makes an even greater ass of himself.
I love your approach to “free speech”.
How do people like you get to run a university?
This is very silly. References to guns do not make any sort of threat. Does the movie Fight Club create an unsafe situation? Perhaps it should be removed from campus.
Additionally, your exploitation of the NIU tragedy is shameful.
see the flier here: http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/9169.html
thank you
I was right, you didn’t have the guts to post the link to the FIRE article that took issue with your self-characterization as a “staunch defender of free speech”. Sigh. The word “hypocrisy” comes to mind, but I suppose this is no longer grounds for concern in the fair halls of academe these days.
President Celeste: After seeing what happened to Larry Summers at Harvard, is it possible that an evaluation of which group could cause you more trouble personally, the two students that wrote the Monthly Bag parody or the Feminist and Gender
Studies department that posted the Monthly Rag, entered into the formulation of your position on this dispute?
The mishandling of Chris Robinson’s case by the Colorado College administration is appalling. The media spotlight has been turned on CC, not for the many great things about the school, but for these absurd charges. As a graduate of CC (class of 2001), I worry about the publicity that the school is receiving from this case.
Colorado College is a tiny school that many people are unfamiliar with. The flood of new stories regarding this case in particular have put CC in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
Next time someone assumes that I meant UC-Boulder when I tell them I went to Colorado College, I will be much more hesitant to correct them.
I have posted a comment to this entry and I am sure others have – can you tell me why you refuse to post any of the comments?
I wrote an e-mail to President Celeste critical of his actions in this case based on representations from a free-speech advocacy group named FIRE. After reading the 4/7 blog entry with its description of the flyer, I believe that te flyer was closer to the “fire in a crowded theater” exception to free speech than I thought. I still believe that counseling would have been more approriate than public humiliation in the guise of re-education, but the president made a tough call and I respect that.
President Celeste’s blog posting came after my e-mail, and I do regret not waiting for more complete information.
Bob Lovell, ‘69
As a 1978 alumnus and one who was incredibly embarased by the lead editorial in the Las Vegas Review Journal yesterday, I’m afraid this blog I just read does little to elucidate the circumstances surrounding the event. How can a national crisis draw such a paltry response? I learned more facts from the editorial, though I will confess as a police officer for the CSPD from 4/78-9-81 we often released to the press only those details we felt could aid in our investigative efforts and at times would engage in deliberate misinformation to attempt to draw out clues from the potential suspects. Now as an anesthesiologist, first for five years at Memorial in C/S (so i could care for my fellow former colleagues)doing extensive trauma and then after being recruited to Las Vegas -a much busier trauma environment I keep an avid interest in community and the safety thereof. Between the hockey incident and the latest bulletin I’m truly distressed as to the direction of the leadership @ CC and look forward to speaking with you or communicating further to better comprehend the thought process that has pervaded the campus recently. I also took many of the ‘on campus’ extra duty CSPD shifts in an effort to protect ‘my’ campus as well as improve relations between the student body and the local police force. As a poor student @ CC and because of my dedication from my Jesuit H.S. teachings of ’service to others’ I as as sophomore, junior, and then sr. running Arthur House knew many of the students in classes behind mine and as their ‘peer-group’ counselor took my role quite seriously-feel free to speak with Max Taylor about me & some of the ethical delimmas we handled. Yes that was my patrol car parked in front of the student union(at the cross-walk to slow cascade traffic ) while i was out of the vehicle interacting with the students. I look forward to hearing much more about these and other instances which have left me scratching my (fortunately still hair covered) head. You will find few alumni who have continued to visit the campus and the city over the years and who would like nothing better to be able to better express/explain events which have as of late created a tremendous amount of negative reaction from my fellow alumni and many in this Las Vegas community who know i attended CCC due to my strong promotion of the same over the past 30? years-ouch.. look forward to hearing from you in the near future- Dr. Bob
I don’t know if you are following the news from Europe. I would love to get your opinion about this, freedom of speech is one but taking care of personal safety sometimes can become very very difficult.
It is something different (more political area) then when you are talking about but based on same grounds.
Best,
Hypo (NL)