The Try-Works

Given the editorial bent of this site, you can probably imagine how fucking amusing I found this.

An ethics group has filed a complaint accusing Republican Jim Geddes of ducking campaign-finance laws in his run for a CU regent seat that’s highly coveted by conservatives.

Colorado Ethics Watch, a nonpartisan legal watchdog group, filed the campaign-finance complaint Wednesday with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, saying Geddes’ campaign hasn’t filed two sets of contribution and expenditure reports that were due May 1 and June 2.

Geddes, a trauma surgeon from Sedalia, could face late fees exceeding $4,000, and critics question whether he’s committed to CU’s mission to be open and accountable to the public.

Geddes’ campaign could not be reached for comment Thursday after repeated attempts.

Geddes is the lone GOP candidate for the Republican-heavy 6th Congressional District, which blankets Douglas, Arapahoe and Elbert counties. He will face Democrat AJ Clemmons.

CU Regent Paul Schauer, R-Centennial, last month said he wouldn’t seek re-election — an announcement that came amid complaints from conservatives that he was ideologically soft. Schauer, managing director of the Colorado Ready Mixed Concrete Association, has said he is not running to defend his seat because he’s busy changing occupations.

Some observers speculate whether a stricter conservative on the already Republican-heavy board would give the GOP more power over highereducation in the state.

Split in conservative opinion

Schauer — a moderate Republican who has been a swing vote on the CU board — has been slammed by conservatives for not getting behind the creation of a Western civilization department that was pushed by his GOP colleagues.

Regent Tom Lucero, R-Johnstown, proposed that CU start Western civilization departments on its campuses in December 2006. The board voted unanimously to table the motion, and in January 2007, Lucero asked that it be scrapped, acknowledging shared governance among faculty members, administrators and the board. The Boulder campus offers a program that awards certificates, which are similar to minors, in Western civilization studies.

An outside conservative political organization called Coloradoans for Reform in Higher Education circulated fliers in 6th Congressional District neighborhoods this spring comparing Schauer with fired professor Ward Churchill, who ignited national furor with an essay he wrote comparing 9/11 victims with “little Eichmanns.” The fliers said both Schauer and Churchill opposed Western civilization.

The rest.

I think I’ve done this before, but I’d really like to challenge Tom Lucero to a debate, just for shits and grins.  You pick any single period you think best exemplifies “Western civilization”, Mr. Lucero, and let’s roll up our sleeves, get dirty, and see who has a better grasp of the works therein.  My guess is your knowledge consists of half-remembered quotes from David Horowitz.

The scandal over Max Karson’s obviously satirical essay continues.  And Mr. Karson has responded.

I don’t mind offending people. Sometimes it’s necessary to offend in order to provoke thought about difficult subjects. For example, in my “Asians” piece, I poked fun at Asian stereotypes for the purpose of mocking racist white people who never bother to understand or even consider Asian cultures and race relations at the University of Colorado.

And I can deal with the fact that most people don’t read my writing before condemning it. I can deal with people thinking I’m racist. I can deal with the fact that nearly all of my fellow editors at Campus Press have publicly denounced the decision to publish my piece. I can even deal with the death threats.

Up until Wednesday, I felt good about the conversations taking place. I had set out with the goal of sparking dialogue about racism at CU, and that’s what I did. When I found out there was an anti-racism rally organized by the Facebook group, “Plan for Action in Response to Max Karson’s Hate Speech,” I was thrilled. I’ve been at CU for almost two years now, and rarely do I see people of different colors band together in such large numbers.

Keep reading.

Lifestyles of the rich and famous.

Sex, drugs and high rollers. A former prostitute said all three were in play during wild sex parties at an exclusive Denver social club, reports CBS station KCNC-TV in Denver.

“There was no trying to hide anything that was going on,” the woman, who worked for “Denver Players,” told KCNC-TV report Brian Maass, of the after hours parties she said took place at The Denver Club, 518 17th St., over the last several years. She spoke on the condition her name not be used.

“Basically there was allot of drug use, drinking, almost orgy type stuff going on,” she said of the late night gatherings at the club.

Federal and local law enforcement authorities shut down Denver Players and a second escort company, Denver Sugar, last month. They executed search warrants and seized bank accounts, financial records and other evidence from several locations in Denver. Nobody has been arrested or charged, but a federal grand jury is investigating the prostitution services.

The call girl, who spoke exclusively to KCNC-TV, said that on numerous occasions, women from the prostitution agencies were called to attend late-night parties at The Denver Club, a plush squash and social club located on the top two floors of a downtown skyscraper.

She said the women were paid around $2,000 to have sex with numerous men. Asked who the men were, she said they were “business guys, rich businessmen.” She said participants in the parties snorted cocaine and had sex throughout the club.

The rest.

Just out of curiosity, how the fuck are these dipshits only paying $300 for sex? Jesus, I could afford that. I feel that sort of vague betrayal of taste alike to when I heard that Bush drinks Jim Beam. Or for that matter, when I first saw Monica Lewinski.

Really, is there no reason to be a millionaire politician at all?

Even better, as the always charming Sybil points out in the comments, the University of Colorado’s new president, Bruce Benson, was on the board of directors of the Denver Club once upon a time.

I think it’s a fair bet he’s still a member, don’t you? And, with a membership that doesn’t exceed 100, as I understand it, I think it’s also a fair bet that every member at least knows about the blow and hookers hoedowns, even if they ain’t participating.

Right?

Hell, and here I’ve been talking shit about the dimwitted motherfucker for being an illiterate, under-educated asshole.

Obviously, I’d have been better off trying to get on his email list.

Peter Michelson, one of the few staunch defenders of Ward Churchill at the University of Colorado (and a damn fine professor, which I can attest from personal experience), has taken on the horseshit flap about Max Karson’s obviously satirical piece in CU’s student paper.  A piece which has now gotten Mr. Karson suspended from the paper.

Mr. Michelson’s dead on, of course.  Right down to his take on Boulder village idiot and hack muckraker, Heath Urie, who drummed up this mess.  The following is the full article from the Daily Camera.

To read the Feb. 21 and 22 Camera articles by Heath Urie on Max Karson, an editor and writer for CU’s Campus Press, one must believe that Mr. Karson is a mad-dog racist advocating that Asian students at CU should be “captured and ‘hogtied’” and “rounded up for a ‘reformation’” because “They hate us all … And I say it’s time we started hating them back.” While all these quoted words do appear in Karson’s now infamous op-ed column, Urie’s description of the piece is so “wrong” that it borders on criminal libel.

Still, Karson’s work not only “infuriated some students and past members of the Campus Press staff” but caught the indignant attention of the university chancellor, “Bud” Peterson, who contended that Karson’s column “was a poor attempt at social satire laden with offensive references, stereotypes, and hateful language” and was moreover “not properly labeled as either satire or commentary.”

The chancellor instructed the dean of the School of Journalism to “consider what steps are appropriate to account for what was published.” Given that the chancellor was careful to note that Karson’s “column is unquestionably protected under the First Amendment,” his charge to the dean was at the very least suggestively vague.

But one doesn’t get appointed to deanships by being slow on the uptake. Dean Paul Voakes promptly announced that in his “humble opinion, the student editors on this Asian piece got it wrong.” Imagine that: a humble dean and students’ getting it wrong! I taught at CU for 30 years and don’t recall meeting a humble dean or students ever getting it wrong. So this was some serious business. And the dean addressed it seriously.

First, as pedagogue, he distinguished between freedom of speech, “including freedom of despicable speech,” and material “so gratuitously offensive that its intention … is missed by the readers.” As teachers of literature know, students often go in the guise of readers, and their engagement with the famous “intentional fallacy” is tricky at best. Accordingly, the dean’s admonition was pertinent. As he put it, he and the student editors needed “to have a chat about that.” That being the acquisition of sufficient “sophistication” to “know where (the) line should be” between freedom of speech and, well, its antithesis.

The “chat” had quick results, where the public witnessed how the dean complemented pedagogy with his functions as scourge of poor attempts at social satire (the chancellor’s judgment), editors “getting it wrong” (the dean’s judgment), and mother superior of “diversity” training: Among other reparations The Campus Press editors “will work with” CU’s diversity coordinator and establish a diversity advisory board and take “a series of diversity awareness workshops,” and adopt a policy of standards of “acceptability” for op-ed pieces.

In the context of education these are plausible punishments. But the real lesson here is that free speech at CU — i.e. speech for which one will not be, as the Chinese have it, “re-educated” — is subject to the literary standards of a not particularly literate chancellor, the offensiveness quotient of a Student Diversity Advisory Board and anonymous “professional journalists of color,” and opinion standards of “experienced opinion editors.” If these journalists and editors of opinion were to include personnel from, say, The Washington Times, The National Review, and the Fox network as well as the tasteful local media, to say nothing of the Camera’s Heath Urie and CU’s own PR department, then the standards of vulgarity, mendacity, incompetence and offensiveness should not set the bar beyond the reach of even such a determinedly errant student writer/editor as Max Karson.

But then, how “wrong” was Mr. Karson? If one goes to the Campus Press Web site, one can read his column. Contrary to the chancellor’s characterization, it is clearly indicated as opinion and commentary, and it is conspicuously obvious as satire. Further, its satirical context reveals how the presumably professional Camera reporter’s description “got it wrong.” So why would the dean of the journalism school ignore the evidence before his eyes, precisely what the Campus Press faculty adviser had seen and apparently approved, and take up the chancellor’s righteously wrong-headed cudgel?

The real issue here is not whether Mr. Karson’s satire is poor or sophomoric. Nor is it an issue of “damage,” as the chancellor claimed. Whatever the resolutions of CU’s Student Union Legislative Council or the public “upset” for which Dean Voakes felt obliged to apologize, Karson’s article could not and has not damaged anyone or thing, including the reputation of the university. The real issue is that the chancellor feared or was told it was “offensive.”

Offensiveness is what accounts for how the reporter, the chancellor and the dean took a shot at Kid Karson’s epistle and “got it wrong.” A cult of offensiveness has developed out of a “feel good’ ethos, whereby everybody is supposed to have the right to feel good. Its ideology thrives on college campuses and even extends to the law. Serious legal scholars have proposed that First Amendment rights be measured by the offensiveness quotient of an utterance, that one’s right to speak be moderated by whether it offends Mrs. Grundy or the ACLU or the Moral Majority or the Muslim community or the Asian community or Chancellor “Bud” Peterson.

It will never be law, however, because the Supreme Court, no matter how conservative or liberal it might be, will never approve its manifest capriciousness, both as law and social policy. But it can weasel its way into practice if people who should know better, people such as Chancellor Peterson and Dean Voakes, validate “offensiveness” as the arbiter of free speech in university discourse. That is the kind of thing that really does do damage.

After his posting yesterday about why Ward Churchill’s scheduled debate with Victor Davis Hanson at UC Boulder has been so abruptly cancelled, PirateBallerina’s head moonbat Jim Paine seems to have gone to sleep at the switch.

That’s a polite way of saying that he’s neglected to inform the lesser Ballerinas that, by this morning, Mr. Hanson—who, it may be recalled, was Paine’s source on this particular tidbit of “All Things Churchill”—had completely changed his tune.

As Hanson’s website now puts it, his April 2 debate with Churchill “has been canceled at this time and we are working on an upcoming debate. Our apologies to Ward Churchill for misstating the reasons earlier.”

Yeah. Right.

Hanson doesn’t say WHO his “upcoming debate” is intended to be WITH. Nor does he indicate who comprises the “we” that he supposedly has “working on” it.

Most glaring of all, while Hanson admits to having “misstated the reasons” for cancellation of the Churchill debate—and apologizes to the Good Prof for the bogus nature of said mistatement—he offers no hint as to what the real reasons ARE.

Churchill confirms that both Hanson and the self-described “paleoconservative” Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Chad Kifer are actively dodging his requests for an explanation.

Let’s face it, kids. The stench of ACTA’s Hank Brown, Bruce Benson, Michael Poliakof, and Bud Peterson—CU administrative heavies, every one—is getting stronger by the moment.

So, too, the sweet scent of a lawsuit.

Some of you may have noticed Jim Paine’s story on PirateBallerina this morning claiming that an upcoming debate between our own Professor Ward Churchill and the right’s erstwhile “intellectual” icon Victor Davis Hanson, scheduled to occur in CU’s Mackey Auditorium on the evening of April 2, has been canceled.

Why? Because, Paine says, “Churchill unexpectedly pulled out.”

Now that didn’t sound quite right, but Paine attributed the statement to Hanson himself, and provided a link to the man’s website. So we followed up and, sure enough, the quoted verbiage appears thereon.

So, too, the observation that the “cancellation” will last only “until [Hanson] can come up with another opponent.”

At that point, we contacted Churchill, who informed us that there’s a wee bit of a problem with what Hanson’s saying, to wit: It’s a lie.

Better yet, as proof, the Good Prof forwarded us the whole e-mail exchange between himself and a young man named Chad Kifer, Director of Program Advancement and
Collegiate Debates for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), a rightwing speakers bureau.

While we now have everything from Kifer’s original overture to Churchill on the idea of debating Hanson, to their discussion(s) of the topic to be debated, to the contractual arrangements involved, the following e-mail, received by the Good Prof last Thursday, shows very clearly that the debate was NOT cancelled because Churchill “pulled out” (”unexpectedly,” or otherwise).

What follows is Mr. Kifer’s message, in full:

Dear Ward,

I am writing to regretfully inform you that we have had to cancel the debate for April 2, 2008 at UC Boulder. This is due largely to matters outside our control. I am grateful for your willingness to participate in the program and I hope that we can find another forum that would be more suitable for this dialogue.

Thank you again and I will be in touch with future prospects as they  become available.

Most sincerely,

Chad G. Kifer
Director of Program Advancement and Collegiate Debates
Intercollegiate Studies Institute
800-526-7022
www.isi.org

Churchill also informs us—and has provided a copy of his reply to back up what he’s saying—that he strenuously objected to the cancellation and demanded a detailed explanation as to the grounds upon which the debate was canceled and who, exactly, did the canceling.

He also states unequivocally, in the same e-mail to Kifer, that he himself is ready to proceed with the event, as scheduled, and implies that he is prepared to assert his contractual rights in the matter.

Finally, Churchill says that he’s got several calls in to both Kifer and Hanson, neither of whom have as yet replied.

Stay tuned, guys and gals, because this one’s shaping up to look like more than the usual measure of fun.

There’s an askance eyebrow arching all the way to the East Coast about the University of Colorado’s selection of oil-millionaire illiterate, Bruce Benson, for its president.  The following is from Stanley Fish, writing for the New York Times.  In full, as it’s rather delicious.  Mr. Fish leads with the obvious irony.  (An irony which has, not unexpectedly, entirely escaped the local media.)

In one of those ironies that make life interesting, the University of Colorado, which dismissed controversial professor Ward Churchill because of doubts about his academic qualifications, has appointed a president who doesn’t have any. (The final vote was taken on Feb. 20.)

Bruce Benson is an oilman, Republican activist, failed candidate for governor, co-chairman of Mitt Romney’s (now ended) campaign, successful fund raiser, donor to the university, former chairman of the Metropolitan State College Denver Board and chair of a blue-ribbon panel on higher education. Obviously he has a strong interest in education, but his highest degree is a B.A., and he has never been a member of a faculty or engaged in research or published papers in a learned journal. In short, he is no way an academic, and yet he is about become the president of an academic institution, and not any old institution, but a state university ranked 11th among public universities and 34th among universities overall.

Not surprisingly, the announcement a short while ago that he was the only candidate being put forward by the 17-person search committee drew protests from faculty, students and some alumni. The faculty assembly voted 40-4 against him. A group called ProgressNow gathered signatures for an “oppose Benson” petition. The House Majority leader, Democrat Alice Madden, said that when she heard the news, she though it was a “really bad” joke; she added that “he will be the least educated president ever considered in modern history.”

Maybe in Colorado. But some people in West Virginia believe that they have a candidate for the “least educated president” prize. Like Benson, Michael Garrison has no advanced degrees in an academic subject (although he does at least have a law degree), and his appointment, in April of last year, was opposed by the Faculty Senate.

Again like Benson, Garrison has a long-term interest in higher education – he was chairman of the state’s Higher Education Policy Committee – but his main career work has been first as a chief of staff to a former governor and subsequently as a lobbyist. In recent months he has become involved in a rather murky controversy. A daughter of the present governor (a Democrat and a political ally) had claimed a degree on her resume that apparently was never awarded. When apprised of this fact, a university spokesperson said that a clerical error had been made and that the degree had indeed been earned.
But some inside and outside the university claim that the record had been re-written after the story broke. The university has now established a panel to review the matter, and Garrison has denied that he did anything wrong, or did anything at all: “The president does not award degrees.” The affair has revived suspicions that Garrison’s appointment was politically motivated.

Two different states, two different political parties, but the same concerns about the academic credentials of an academic leader, about the integrity of the search that led to his appointment and about the corruption of a supposedly academic process by partisan interests.

These concerns, however, should be separated and distinguished. It is mostly faculty members who focus on the process questions – was it a genuine search? were member of the committee acting as political agents? was the fix in? – and assume that the wrong answers (no, yes and yes) would be enough to invalidate the search. But this only demonstrates how little they understand about the world of senior administrative searches. While it would be wrong to take into account the political affiliations or business connections or wealth of a candidate for a faculty position, it would be wrong not to take these things into account when choosing a president.

The reason is obvious: the political and financial profile of a faculty candidate are irrelevant to what you want him or her to do. But the political and financial profile of an administrative candidate are altogether relevant because what you want him or her to do is not produce scholarship or teach inspiring classes (although both would be welcome bonuses), but interact successfully with a number of external constituencies including regents, legislators, governors, the press and donors – to name a few. The search for such a person cannot be purely academic, because the responsibilities of the office are not purely academic.

By the same reasoning, it is unrealistic and even unwise to expect a search of this kind to be open in the sense that you cast your net as widely as possible and just see what turns up. If the qualifications for the job include the ability to win friends and influence the right people, it would be good to have spotted some types who fill that bill in advance, and then make sure that the rails are a little greased for them.

The truth is that there are no perfectly straightforward senior administrative searches. They are all a bit cooked, and often they serve more as window dressing than as genuinely deliberative processes. Indeed, given that search committees are always advisory, those asked to serve on them should be aware that the work they do will quite possibly be to no effect, either because a decision had been made before the process ever began or because the ball is taken away and given to someone else just as the goal is approached. (The phrase “university service” takes on new meaning for those who agree to participate in this piece of theater.) That’s just the way it is, and it’s not a matter of blame, but a consequence of a process that straddles two worlds, the world of teaching and scholarship and the world of high-stakes finance and politics. Those who complained about that process in Colorado wanted it to be confined to only one on those worlds, forgetting that executive leadership requires skills most faculty members neither possess nor appreciate.

But a parallel mistake is made from the other direction by those who dismiss the importance of academic skills. Their argument (which I heard at dinner last week when I was in Boulder) is that academic credentials are not that necessary because management skills, like those Benson is presumed to have, are transferable from activity to activity. Someone who can manage an oil company will be able to manage the enterprise of a university.

The reasoning, however, is specious. It is no doubt true that an experienced executive will quickly learn the ropes of an industry new to him. The product may be different, but the tasks will be basically the same: assess market share, learn the routes of distribution, fine-tune the relationship between inventory and demand, increase efficiency perhaps by downsizing the workforce.

But in the academy there is no product except knowledge, and that may take decades to develop, if it develops at all. The concept of market share is inapposite; efficiency is not a goal; and there is no inventory to put on the shelves. Instead the norms are endless deliberations, explorations that may go nowhere, problems that only five people in the world even understand, lifetime employment that is not taken away even when nothing is achieved, expensively labor-intensive practices and no bottom line. What is an outsider to make of that?

Not much, because he or she will lack the internalized understanding that renders the features of the enterprise intelligible, and in the absence of that understanding, the wanderer in a strange land will see only anomalies and mistakes that should be corrected. Items in a practice are not known piecemeal; you don’t learn them by listing them. You learn them by being so embedded in the practice that everything that happens within it has a significance you don’t have to strain for because it is perspicuous without any mental effort at all.

Benson is not embedded in the practices of the academy, and no crash course will yield the tacit knowledge that would make him a knowledgeable and informed steward of the university’s fortunes. Of course, this liability might be finessed if he leaves the academic side of things to the chancellors of the system’s campuses, as he has suggested he will, but it seems somewhat odd to hire a CEO and then hope that he will stay away from the store.

Nevertheless, the appointment does make a kind of sense in Colorado, where the percentage of state funding of the university’s operations has fallen to 7 (in what sense, exactly, is this a state university?), and further cuts are feared. It is the hope that Benson, well connected as he is, may be able to shake money out of trees that have become increasingly bare. By supporting and pushing Benson, the powers that be in the state are saying, We’ve taken your funding away and now you’ll have to hire one of us if you want to have a chance to get some of it back; and, in the bargain, you’d better be careful to run your affairs in the manner we approve and dictate.

It’s the classic pincer move: first we starve you and then we revive you, but on our terms, and one of them is Bruce Benson.

Who knows, it may work out. The financial situation may improve, and the academic enterprise may flourish if Benson really does keep hands off. But a good result, if there is one, will not justify a bad practice, and putting someone with no academic experience in charge of an academic institution is just that. Nor is it necessary, even in the straitened circumstances (hardly unique to Colorado) the university faces. There is another way, and Michael Carrigan, one of the three (Democratic) regents to vote against Benson, pointed to it when he told me, “I can’t believe that there are no candidates out there with both business acumen and academic credentials.”

He is right. Those candidates were out there and they still are. Perhaps the next university tempted to go this route will take the trouble to look for them.

Max Karson, a Try-Works favorite, has struck again, penning an obviously satirical opinion piece about racial tension at CU entitled, “If It’s War The Asians Want . . .” Unless I’m missing something, the gist of the piece seems pretty clear: that peoples who still retain their own non-homogenized cultures will assuredly get them wiped out by exposure to the University of Colorado. The piece plays on stereotypes, but Karson rather unambiguously makes the point that CU will do its damnedest to reduce folks to the stereotypes held by the overwhelmingly white student body; not that said stereotypes represent inherent attributes of the targeted parties.

It ain’t nearly as funny as it should be, but the reaction sure as hell has been. It being CU, the irony-challenged administration and student body have been tsk-tsking like, well, a Boulderite at a William S. Burroughs reading. And even more delicious, the entire staff of the Campus Press has been ordered to undergo diversity training.

So, what started all the fucking fuss about an obviously satirical opinion piece penned in a student newspaper? Well, it turns out it was misreporting of my old pal, Heath Urie. This from the indispensable Michael Roberts:

The ball got rolling with a February 20 piece in the Boulder Daily Camera by staffer Heath Urie. The article had a few flaws: As noted in a subsequent correction, Urie improperly identified the column as an editorial representing the opinion of the Campus Press as a whole and misstated the tenure of past Press editor Stephanie Clary, who remarked negatively about Karson’s attempt at generating yuks. Nonetheless, the report was quickly picked up by other media outlets — among them the Denver Post, Channel 4, the Rocky Mountain News, and even FoxNews.com.

The rest.

Let me repeat that: “Urie improperly identified the column as an editorial representing the opinion of the Campus Press as a whole.”

Let me rephrase that: Heath Urie, a journalist gainfully employed by a respected mid-market newspaper, ACTUALLY THOUGHT AN ARTICLE THAT PROPOSED KIDNAPPING ALL ASIANS AND MAKING THEM EAT BAD SUSHI WAS THE OFFICIAL EDITORIAL STANCE OF CU’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER!

Now, I knew Mr. Urie was a beer or two shy of a six-pack upon meeting him, but after this I’m starting to wonder that he hasn’t accidentally lobotomized himself with his nose-picking finger. One has to wonder how many times the Daily Camera’s gonna let this barely literate little asshole embarrass them.

A half-literate, undereducated, neoconservative, oil millionaire for president, selected in one of the most obvious displays of dipshit cronyism to take place this side of the Bush administration.

I can’t decide who deserves it more: the cowardly, sell-out faculty or the pampered, illiterate clones who make up the majority of the student body.  (And, yeah, I’m an alumni and a part-time faculty member.)

Frankly, I don’t give a shit.  Rename the fucking thing Colorado Tech and call it what it is: a glorified trade school where suburban kids can get fucked up on cheap beer while coasting their way to their chosen cubicle farm.

The second semester of Ward Churchill’s student-sponsored lectures will take place as follows:

2/26/2008    7:00 PM  10:15 PM  Hellems Room 199
3/4/2008     7:00 PM  10:15 PM  Hellems Room 252
3/11/2008    7:00 PM  10:15 PM  Hellems Room 252
3/18/2008    7:00 PM  10:15 PM  Hellems Room 252
4/1/2008     7:00 PM  10:15 PM  Hellems Room 252
4/22/2008    7:00 PM  10:15 PM  Hellems Room 252
4/29/2008    7:00 PM  10:15 PM  Hellems Room 252

Gertrude brings up a wonderful point in the comments here.

I like that. Most upper-middle class have a BA, but no graduate degree. These are the exact people who like to kick out the ladder, and strongly oppose affirmative action. They’ll call requests for full evaluations of students’ potential based on multiple criteria unrigorous, and demand that SATs and grades function fine despite vastly different high schools. Yet, when it comes to people who went further in the same system than they did, the perspective changes. They now want merit judged on completed projects and potential (because they know they could have gone further if they wanted to waste their life on getting some degree), rather than rewarding a nerdy record of actually going through school.

Yeah, I love how all the rightwing assholes who were going purple in the face with righteous anger over Ward Churchill’s lack of a doctorate, are now equally empurpled at the idea of anyone questioning Bruce Benson’s lack of any advanced degree whatsoever.

But, shit, this is affirmative action.  Another millionaire bigot getting a high-paid, high-profile position based on dipshit cronyism, and nothing else.

Y’know, just like this kind of affirmative action — which is never named as such — always seems to work.

Well, time to call off the Bruce Benson controversy, Patty Limerick has weighed in.  She was on the University of Colorado’s Presidential Search Committee, and she’ll have you know that Mr. Benson was chosen because “his service to the cause of education in this state is unmatched.”

Furthermore, “the very habits of expression that make some faculty and students wince when they listen to Benson are exactly the habits that could persuade a majority of Coloradans to appreciate CU and recognize its need for greater financial support.”

Really?  That seemed a rather odd point to bring up.  The only context I could find for it was in Max Karson’s run-down of the odder statements made by Mr. Benson in the open student forum from which Mr. Karson was ejected.  Y’know, about “handicaps”, “big-time gays”, and my personal favorite, a plantation era claim of an ability to figure out how the minds of minorities work.  As Mr. Karson remembers, “several people in the audience winced. Others, myself included, laughed openly.”

So, to translate, Ms. Limerick likes Mr. Benson because, being an asshole bigot millionaire, he’ll be able to better relate to other asshole bigot millionaires.

Lovely.

I recently came across one possible reason for Ms. Limerick’s devotion to Mr. Benson, by the way.  It was left in the comments to this wonderful post penned by Ann M. Little, a history professor at CSU.  (And do read the comments.  Amongst other things, Ms. Little and historian pals would like to know if Ms. Limerick has published fucking anything since her monstrously over-rated The Legacy of Conquest.)

If you go to the Center for the American West website, you’ll see that Bruce Benson is not only a board member, but a supporter of Limerick’s endowed chair! And she was on the search committee that chose him. Seems like a conflict of interest to me.

And sure enough, there the motherfucker is.

Yeah, the usual dipshit cronyism at its finest.  But at least we know why there weren’t any other finalists for the job.  After all, how many dipshits could there be in the world lacking in self respect enough to grease Patty Limerick’s wheels, for Christ’s sake.

Can be found here.

Max Karson getting the microphone yanked for his perfectly appropriate question comes at 38:15.

I have it on good authority that the following was sent to all the Boulder/Denver dailies just moments ago. (And, yeah, it seems the Friend of Pigasus II are the kind to recycle unfunny, desperate content in hopes of a cheap laugh until it’s worn thinner than Bruce Benson’s pigshit concern for academic freedom. Go fucking figure.)

Dear Editor:

Many have been opining that for all those who criticize rightwing oil whore Bruce Benson’s selection as sole finalist for the position of University of Colorado President, none have offered a better choice.

As such, and acknowledging this fair point, we, the Friends of Pigasus II, demand the CU regents consider a new direction for the CU presidency.

We propose a candidate for the position who we think easily matches the integrity and commitment to academic principles of Mr. Benson. (Or, for that matter, current CU president and rightwing ACTA whore, Hank Brown.)

Our candidate?

Pigasus II.

Some will protest that being a 220 pound market hog should preclude one from serving as President of Colorado’s flagship university. We ask you to consider the following:

Both Bruce Benson and Pigasus II have served an equal number of years in higher education. Likewise, both Bruce Benson and Pigasus II have received an equal number of advanced degrees.

Pigasus II will be as content as Bruce Benson to swallow the sewage spoonfed him by rightwing interest groups. Moreover, whereas Bruce Benson can only metaphorically spew feces all over the vestiges of academic freedom and intellectual honesty remaining at the University of Colorado, Pigasus II will be happy to do so quite literally.

Furthermore, unlike Bruce Benson, Pigasus II has never, to our knowledge, driven while drunk. Nor has Pigasus II ever threatened the life of a spouse.

Granted, he has, from time to time, consumed the corpses of his offspring, but we think any amount of meditation on Bruce Benson’s political career will disclose that the difference between the two creatures’ behavior is not so very great.

Viva academic freedom! Viva Pigasus!

Sign our petition: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/pigasus/

Yours truly,
The Friends of Pigasus II

I was thinking of Abbie Hoffmann today and ran across this.

A February 13, 2008 editorial in The Rocky Mountain News opined that for all those criticizing rightwing oil whore Bruce Benson’s selection as sole finalist for the position of University of Colorado President, none have offered a better choice.

As such, and acknowledging the Rocky Mountain News’ fair point, we, the undersigned, demand the CU regents consider a new direction for the CU presidency.

We propose a candidate for the position who we think easily matches the integrity and commitment to academic principles of Mr. Benson. (Or, for that matter, current CU president and rightwing ACTA whore, Hank Brown.)

Our candidate?

Pigasus II.

Some will protest that being a 220 pound market hog should preclude one from serving as President of Colorado’s flagship university. We ask you to consider the following:

Both Bruce Benson and Pigasus II have served an equal number of years in higher education. Likewise, both Bruce Benson and Pigasus II have received an equal number of advanced degrees.

Pigasus II will be as content as Bruce Benson to swallow the sewage spoonfed him by rightwing interest groups. Moreover, whereas Bruce Benson can only metaphorically shit all over the vestiges of academic freedom and intellectual honesty remaining at the University of Colorado, Pigasus II will be happy to do so quite literally.

Furthermore, unlike Bruce Benson, Pigasus II has never, to our knowledge, driven while drunk. Nor has Pigasus II ever threatened the life of a spouse.

Granted, he has, from time to time, consumed the corpses of his offspring, but we think any amount of meditation on Bruce Benson’s political career will disclose that the difference between the two creatures’ behavior is not so very great.

Click here to sign.

Max Karson, whom I rather like, gave Bruce Benson a little hell last night.

“I’m wondering,” asked CU doctoral candidate Duke Austin, “is it true, as the New York Times reported in 1994, that you told your son you’d like to kill his mother?”

“I used to have an expression - ‘I’m going to kill ‘em.’ ‘I’ll kill ‘em’,” Benson replied. “I’ve said it in board meetings.”

. . .

CU senior Max Karson asked Benson about his alleged two-year extramarital affair and his contribution to the legal defense of U.S. Senator Bob Packwood, who was accused of sexual assault, abuse and harassment.

“It sounds like you have a problem with women,” Karson said. “How do you respond to that?”

Benson replied that he’s worked closely with women - the majority of the Denver Public Schools Foundation staff is women.

“Just because you know some women who you haven’t threatened to kill-” Karson began to reply before security rushed him and UCSU’s chief of staff took the microphone away.

The event moderators interjected, saying the crowd’s questions should apply strictly to Benson’s presidential role.

But after the event, Karson argued that his question is relevant.

“If you were hiring a manager of Wal-Mart and found out he had threatened to kill his wife, you would ask about that,” Karson said.

The rest.

Even better, Mr. Karson has a wonderful long opinion piece about Bruce Benson in today’s Campus Press. He records probably the most memorably hilarious line I’ve ever heard from a politician anywhere. It seems Mr. Benson knows how “‘the minds’ of minorities work.” (Something he larn’t on the plantation, I’ll bet.)

I decided it would be an anti-Benson piece from the get-go, because all I knew about him was that he’s a conservative Republican oil man with no experience in education. I’d even thought of my satirical angle already-since CU is overrun with stupid white business majors, a stupid white oil tycoon would be a perfect president.

A few days later I saw a flyer for an open forum with Benson at the UMC. I decided it would be a good idea to see him in action before I wrote my opinion piece, since it’s pretty lame to just poke around on the Internet for a few hours and then pretend you know what you’re writing about.

But in order to get some background, I did sit down at my computer and read all of the Campus Press stories about Benson. One story reported that during Benson’s first open forum with students, he told them that he supports women’s issues, and if he doesn’t, his wife will keep him in line. This was in response to a female student in the audience pointing out that Benson contributed to Sen. Bob Packwood’s defense fund in a sexual assault case.

That’s when I started to hate Benson. Most male politicians know by now that you can’t answer questions about your insensitivity to rape by saying, “Heh, heh, women!”

Then I heard that he threatened to kill his ex-wife. That story broke when he ran for governor of Colorado in 1994 and his divorce papers were made public. He even admitted to threatening her in an interview with the New York Times.

Now I really hated him. The afternoon before the forum, I frantically copied and pasted little scraps of articles I wanted to use into an empty Word document, the whole time muttering witty little come-backs to the stupid things he’s said. For example, when asked about his two DUI’s, Benson replied, “If you don’t learn from your mistakes, you will never be successful in life.”

So I cleverly muttered to myself, “Learn from your mistakes? Apparently you didn’t learn from your first DUI.”

Then it suddenly occurred to me that instead of matching wits with an imaginary Benson in my empty apartment, maybe I should go to the forum and ask him if he really threatened to kill his wife. Five seconds later, when I realized I was actually going to do it, my stomach rolled over and I started hyperventilating.

I called my friend back in Massachusetts for a pep-talk. He thought the whole thing was hilarious, and I felt better until I got off the phone. Then I panicked again.

I typed up a question to ask Benson. It referenced his support of Bob Packwood in the rape case, Benson’s death threat to his ex-wife, and his comment about his wife making sure he remains an advocate for women. I ended it with, “It seems like you have some problems with women. How do you respond to that?”

I quickly printed it out and half-ran to the UMC. When I got inside, the first person I saw was CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard. I said hi, and he asked me if I had a good question for Benson. I told him I did.

He said, “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint you,” I said, grinning.

Inside the ballroom, Benson kicked off the festivities with a five-minute speech during which he only talked about how much money he will raise for CU. He was utterly oblivious to the fact that not a single person in the audience gave a damn. Then the question and answer session began.

Representatives from UCSU opened up with a few questions about diversity, which Benson answered with long, blundering statements about all of the minorities he has helped during his career. One example he gave was that he worked hard to make Metro State “Hispanic-serving.” He went on to tell us that he accomplished this by figuring out how “the minds” of minorities work.

Several people in the audience winced. Others, myself included, laughed openly.

A UCSU representative pointed out that the word “diversity” includes the GLBTQ community and students with disabilities. Benson responded that he is going to advocate for all students, including “handicaps.”

More winces this time. Less laughter.

Then the tri-executives opened up the forum to the audience.

After Benson butchered several questions about his plans for saving the environment, a girl in the back stood up and asked him what he was going to do to support the gay community at CU.

Benson replied, “Do you know who Tim Gill is? Do you know who he is? He’s a big gay in Colorado.”

The entire room erupted in laughter while Benson tried to explain that he meant to say “gay activist.”

A few questions later, a guy stood up and announced that he’s a PhD student studying racial and gender stratification. Then he said, “I’m wondering, is it true, as the New York Times reported in 1994, that you told your son you’d like to kill his mother?”

I frowned, disappointed that someone else got to say it before me. Then I realized that I could save my question by including the fact that Benson has already admitted to threatening to kill his ex-wife.

Benson’s defense began, “I have this saying-I used to have this saying, ‘I’ll kill him.’ You know? I’d say, ‘Oh, I’ll kill him.’ I don’t say it now because it’s gotten me in trouble before,” he chuckled. “But did I threaten my wife? No, of course not.”

A few minutes later a guy with a microphone came over and told me I was next. I immediately broke a sweat, my testicles shriveled up into little raisins, and my heart started beating so fast it felt like two rabbits were having sex in my ribcage. I took deep breaths and closed my eyes, and I pictured Luke Skywalker watching the two suns set on Tatooine.

Then the microphone guy tapped me on the shoulder.

I took the microphone from his hand and stood up. My fingertips immediately went numb. I realized I only had around two minutes of standing time before I would faint.

“Hi, I’m Max, and I’m a senior in psychology.” My voice boomed through the speakers. I unfolded my piece of paper. “The tri-executives have asked us to consider your biographical information in our evaluation of you as a candidate,” I said. “So here’s some biographical information: In 1992, you contributed money to Sen. Bob Packwood’s defense fund when he was accused of sexual assault and abuse by ten women. In 1994, not only were you accused of threatening to kill your ex-wife, you publicly admitted to doing it. She also filed a motion in court stating that she feared for her safety.”

People gaped at me. Some of them were laughing, but many were glaring at me, as though I had snuck into Benson’s underwear drawer and stolen his diary.

I continued, “You also admitted to having an affair for two years before you asked for a divorce.” The audience interrupted me with a gasp.

The microphone guy put his hand on my shoulder. “Give me the microphone,” he said.

“And here at CU, earlier this month, you said that you’re very proactive for women, but if you’re not, your wife will make sure that you are. It seems like you have some problems with women. How do you respond to that?”

By this time both of my arms were completely numb and my legs were tingling up to my knees. The microphone guy tried to grab the microphone from my hand but I pulled it away.

Benson shook his head. “Don’t try and tell me I’m opposed to women. You know, I hate questions like that. You haven’t done your homework, and you ought to do your homework. I never threatened my wife, and you can ask some of the women I’ve worked with, they’ll all tell you the same thing. I don’t have any problems with women. The Denver Public Schools foundation is all women.”

Amazingly, the audience broke out in applause, happy to see me discredited.

As they clapped, the edges of my vision began to yellow and darken.

“Just because-” I began, and then stopped. They had cut my microphone. “Hey!” I said. “My mic stopped working!”

UCSU’s chief of staff appeared behind me and whispered, “You have to sit down right now.”

I shouted to Benson, “Just because you know some women you haven’t threatened to kill-”

I was cut off by a roar of disapproval from the audience.

One student twisted his face in disgust and said, “Hey, c’mon man! Talk about the qualifications!”

“Well, there are a lot of women here at CU.” I said. “And I think they’re probably going to be concerned about this!”

Benson fired back, but I couldn’t hear him because the UCSU chief of staff leaned close to my ear and said, “If you don’t sit down, I’m going to kick you out.”

“Okay,” I said, still standing. If only he knew that I would have fallen down all by myself if he just waited thirty more seconds.

“Right now,” he said. “I’m going to kick you out right now.”

“Okay,” I said. He didn’t respond. “I’ll sit down once he stops answering my question,” I said. He gave up, nodding.

I don’t remember what happened immediately after that because I was blacking out, but when I sat down several people were staring at me and I was holding a pink piece of paper that said “Warning” at the top. It was list of rules concerning interference with university activity, interference with the freedom of expression of others, harassment, and refusal to leave property when asked to do so by a chief administrative officer.

As far as I could tell, I hadn’t broken any of those rules.

The next couple of students to speak apologized to Benson for the behavior of “some students.” The chairwoman of the College Republicans even pointed at me and announced that she was embarrassed to be a student of the University of Colorado.

The topic of Benson’s death threat to his wife was not raised again.

After the forum ended, I saw CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard talking to a student. Knowing that he was the editor in chief of the Colorado Daily until last year, I thought he would have appreciated my hard-hitting question, and I was curious about what he thought of the angry response I got. I walked over and leaned on a chair near him, and he ignored me. Thinking that he was in the middle of an important conversation, I waited for three minutes.

At last he turned to me and said, “Do you need something from me?”

“I just wanted to say hi,” I said.

“Yeah, you already said hi. Goodbye.”

I almost said, “You know, you don’t work for him yet.” But I didn’t. Instead, I trudged home with my friends, exhausted and in the early stages of a migraine. I plopped down into a chair and thought about what had happened.

An hour later, my irritation at the general forgiveness of Benson’s misogyny had grown to rage.

Are we supposed to only ask Benson nice questions? And when he publicly admits that he threatened to kill his wife, should we pretend we don’t know about it?

And why did someone turn my microphone off? Though the content of my question obviously cast Benson in a bad light, it was a genuine question, and I asked it as respectfully and quickly as I could. Why can’t the sole candidate for the presidency of CU be asked if he hates women?

Can you imagine if President Bush admitted that he threatened to kill his wife? There would be a public outcry. How come there’s no outcry now? Does the average CU student’s desire to appear docile and obedient supersede the outrage provoked by a man so disgusting and stupid that he threatened to kill his own wife?

Well, friends and neighbors, as much as I make you ashamed to be CU students, you make me ashamed to be a human being. How could you sit in your chairs like jellyfish while this monster of a man spewed bigoted, insane nonsense for two hours? And then you get mad at me for not being nice to him.

You know what? A school of idiots deserves to have an idiot for their president.

He’s got my vote.

The rest.

You know, Mr. Karson’s got a point. But I think this school of idiots deserves something else entirely.

Pigasus II.

As noted here, Bruce Benson is the second rightwing asshole in a row to be hustled into the president’s chair at the University of Colorado. And Mr. Benson’s even more brazenly unqualified than current rightwing asshole Hank Brown: he not only has no fucking experience whatsoever, he doesn’t even hold an advanced degree.

In fact, the only qualification he seems to have is that he’s, well, a rightwing asshole. Which seems to be the only qualification those at CU – or for that matter, those in the local media – consider worth bothering with.

The strikes against Benson are easily compiled: he has no experience as a scholar or a college administrator; he holds no advanced degrees; he has been a partisan political figure (helping head up, for instance, the right-wing Trailhead Group); he doesn’t believe in global warming (at one campus gathering last week he cited National Geographic as proving that current climate change could be part of long-term cycles); and he has no apparent qualifications to head a major state-funded research university.

“How would it look for CU, the flagship institution of higher learning in Colorado, home to Nobel laureates and nationally ranked programs, to be represented by someone with just a bachelor’s degree?” asked former regent Jim Martin in a guest editorial in The Daily Camera.

The rest.

As such, the students are protesting. Is it too much to hope for a pie in the face, you think?

Jacob Taylor, a CU junior economics major, is among several students protesting Benson’s appointment by writing letters to the regents and staging the campus demonstration to pique their peers’ attention about the upcoming decision to appoint Benson.

“I think it could be disastrous to have Benson for a president because he’s coming into the job already alienating a large part of the campus community,” Taylor said.

. . .

Margaret LeCompte — a CU professor and president of the Boulder campus’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, an academic-freedom watchdog group — sent a letter to the regents asking that they close the current presidential search and start another one that will yield a more qualified candidate.

“CU now is becoming a laughingstock in the community and the Academy,” she wrote in the letter. “No credible scholars will seek employment in a place whose Regents so seriously insult the faculty by appointing administrators who couldn’t even qualify for tenure.”

The rest.

Now, I agree generally with Ms. LeCompte’s point, but I’m afraid the ship’s already sailed on the ol’ CU/laughingstock sea.

Anyway, sign a petition to boycott the rightwing asshole, if you like. To be honest, I ain’t gonna bother. Trying to save CU from its decline into irrelevant rightwing shithole by boycotting the figurehead seems a little like trying to avoid icebergs by painting the bowsprit of the Titanic. But, as always, I admire the students’ spirit.

But at least the kids are still all right.

A professor in the Benson Earth Sciences Building called police about 8 a.m. Monday after noticing a message scrawled on the oil-painted portrait of Benson, a Republican businessman.

The note, written with Wite-Out, read: “I’ve given CU enough $ for an individual right-wing nut like me to be CU’s president,” according to CU police.

The painting was last seen in good condition about noon Sunday, and police said they’re working to determine who was in the earth sciences building. Benson chaired the $14.5 million fund drive for the building and donated $3 million to its construction before it opened in 1999.

Benson, an oil executive and former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, was named CU’s sole presidential finalist last week. The decision has sparked controversy, despite Benson’s vow to set partisan politics aside.

CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said Benson learned of the vandalism during his Boulder visit and didn’t respond except to say, “That’s too bad.”

The rest.

Martin Walter, a mathematics professor at CU Boulder, is decrying the ACTA-initiated lack of academic freedom at CU, and begging them to muster up the courage to do better.

Given that CU Boulder’s president, Hank Brown, is a former chair of ACTA, I’m of the opinion you might as well spend your free time driving your fucking face into a plaster wall in hopes of achieving psychic powers, but, hell, hope springs eternal.

If there was ever any regard for academic freedom at CU Boulder, there sure as hell ain’t now.  Thanks to the determination of Mr. Brown and his neo-Stalinist cronies — as well as the invaluable cowardice of the majority of faculty — that institution’s been fucking gutted of any such pretensions.  The kindest thing you can call CU is an over-blown vocational school.

Permit me to address two issues that bear on academic freedom, both of them made current by the last general Boulder Faculty Assembly meeting.

In my many years on the BFA, I never thought that I would experience a mass e-mail from the BFA chair chastising the membership for its aggressiveness and tone. (The body was questioning CU Vice President Michael Poliakoff.) Although it would be folly to expect that this letter of mine will have a salutary effect on CU, I do wish to express my concerns about academic freedom — without exciting animosities and creating enemies — in the hope that the larger community will take note.

Two months after Sept. 11, 2001, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a group founded by Lynne Cheney, issued a report:” Defending Civilization: How Our Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It.” Proclaiming that “citizens have rallied behind the president wholeheartedly … college and university faculty have been the weak link in America’s response.” Apparently American faculty who did not support G.W. Bush were undermining the war effort. To make the point, ACTA published the names of about 100 ostensibly disloyal professors and students, names that they later scrubbed from their Web site. The list, known by many as the Cheney-Lieberman hit list, was sent to more than 3,000 trustees at colleges across the country. In hindsight these “weak links” appear far wiser than the Bush administration.

Many commentators refer to ACTA as “the new McCarthyites.” Privately well funded by righ-twing foundations, ACTA works in concert with neocon groups. According to the May 17, Silver & Gold Record, Michael Poliakoff not only has written for ACTA, but also actively supports it; he has mentioned that leading Democrats (independents?), such as Sen. Joe Lieberman, are ACTA affiliates.

The rest.

And speaking of pissing on your Constitutional rights from a very great height, a gang of neo-Stalinist “overpaid, underachieving bureaucrats” at UC San Diego are now designating “free speech zones.” (A term which demands one immediately incinerate the nearest public structure.)

How long until CU Boulder adopts the same, do you think?

My advice to youngsters: if you want an education, if you want open discourse, skip college. Get a library card, read on your own time, and talk to those around you. Higher education in this country is a fucking hustle. Nothing more.

Halfway through a sleep-deprived week of final exams last June, UC San Diego students received what appeared to be a fairly uninteresting campus-wide e-mail from the university administration. With the subject line “Review of PPM 510-1 Section I,” the message did not appear to many students to be the kind of thing that should take priority over, say, a 10-page paper due in 12 hours, or an entire bio-chemistry textbook left to memorize.

Those who bothered to open the e-mail and follow a few links found themselves slogging through the university’s draft proposal of a new policy on “Speech, Advocacy and Distribution of Literature,” a lengthy set of rules and regulations governing use of campus space for rallies and gatherings that critics — such as the ACLU — say will threaten students’ and faculty’s constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly.

Among the guidelines laid out in the document (a “revised” policy that will supersede the school’s current, much shorter policy from 1981) are precise campus maps marking “Designated Public Forums” for the exercise of free speech, a set of requirements for making reservations to hold protests in those areas, hours and decibel levels at which “expressive activity” can occur and-in what has some members of the campus community suspicious about the policy’s timing-a section reminding members of the university staff and faculty to keep their “Personal Political Activity” separate from university activities while using university resources.

The e-mail informed students that the policy would take effect in two weeks, leaving them a small window — the last week of finals and the first week of summer vacation — for submitting comments.

According to an e-mail from UCSD Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life Gary Ratcliff, the university’s goal in revising the policy, which has gone unchanged for 26 years, was to “define and clarify free speech and assembly areas and guidelines to ensure that all legitimate campus activities are allowed to occur without disruption. This includes preserving the safety and privacy of all members of the campus community in a way that is consistent with campus policies.”

As for critics’ complaints that the new language will criminalize on-campus rallies, Ratcliff said “the revised policy will have no impact on the ability of students and others to gather together and stage rallies. It will only clarify the guidelines for such activity, which will benefit all members of the campus community…. This policy does not seek to restrict freedom of speech or assembly activities. Like many universities, UCSD has a long tradition of supporting and upholding these types of activities. We do not anticipate that this new policy will impact the political climate on campus or the relationship between students, faculty and the administration.”

But if the week that followed the announcement of the new policy is any indication, the university might want to prepare for a fight with the students. Within 24 hours of the notification, brand new websites and Facebook.com groups devoted to discussing and organizing a student response to the policy had attracted more than 1,000 members. In heated message-board banter, students ranging from would-be anarchists to sorority girls to concerned members of evangelical Christian groups were debating the semantics of what it means to exercise your First Amendment rights on a college campus and sharing the e-mails they had sent to the university about the policy.

“Demand your rights or lose them,” wrote one member of the Facebook group, called “UCSD, defend your freedom of speech NOW!”

“It’s not just about personal views, it’s about our free speech as dictated by our founding forefathers. Do not be silenced, do not let overpaid, underachieving bureaucrats force you to stay silent!”

The rest.