It was not my intention to contribute to this issue’s opinion section, but something I read over the Thanksgiving break demanded that I comment.
Let me begin with an important addition to my story concerning the peace studies matter in our previous issue. While the administration did not allow the dialogue to take place in a public forum on Goucher’s campus, permission was granted to host the event in a classroom setting. This is an important fact that should have been stated explicitly in my article. A follow up piece featured in this issue states this fact outright, and I have restated it here in the spirit of good faith. Let me be clear that this omission was in no way an attempt to editorialize my article.
And now to the matter at hand: the editorial featured in the previous issue of The Quindecim noted the fact that President Ungar authored a poignant defense of free speech in the college’s alumni magazine, a defense offered in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding the pro-Palestinian activist Anna Baltzer’s appearance at Goucher. Its aim was to highlight the discrepancy between the administration’s policy then and President Ungar’s decision now to prevent the dialogue on human rights in Gaza and the West Bank from moving forward as a public event.
It was upsetting to read President Ungar’s comments, if only because they were so true and yet so far from the current administration policy. They were so timely then, and yet for some reason so unimportant now. They were the missing element in the administration’s decision.
And yet all of my frustration could not match my reaction to the college newsletter I found sitting on my dining room table upon returning home for the Thanksgiving break. In it, President Ungar wrote once again in defense of free speech, this time concerning Karl Rove. It was infused with the same sentiment, and written with some of the same language in his letter from years ago. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
I was so taken aback by this second defense because President Ungar again asked who should be the keeper of the bad list, so to speak, the list of those views and speakers who are unwelcome at Goucher, and this is exactly the question we should be asking in the wake of what happened with the peace studies dialogue.
The key issue for the administration was “balance.” The event was judged unbalanced because each panelist held pro-Palestinian views. Yet there was no counterweight to Karl Rove at the President’s Forum earlier this semester. In fact, there is never a “balance” at any major talk at Goucher, and there shouldn’t be, because we should have the opportunity to hear speakers give their own arguments. Should there have been a global warming skeptic at Thomas Friedman’s talk last year? Of course not.
There is, however, a kind of natural balance inherent in the process of bringing speakers to campus. Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich are balanced by Barney Frank and Helen Thomas, and thus a broad spectrum of views is represented at Goucher.
Indeed, this is the manner in which student events balance one another. Surely the administration would not prevent the College Democrats from hosting an event lacking a Republican voice and religious groups need not balance their events with an alternative to their faith.
And so perhaps it is appropriate to ask President Ungar’s question with a slight modifier: Who decides which events need balance?
Another question: Why was President Ungar unwilling to protect Mr. Ruebner, Rabbi Walt, and Prof. Khamis’ right to speak publicly when he was willing to so eloquently make the case for Karl Rove and Anna Baltzer?
My aim here is to bring to light the incontrovertible fact that an exception has been made of the Israeli/Palestinian issue. Based on my past experience, I am inclined to say that the administration would stand by this exception, and say that it has been made with good reason.
Yet in the course of a debate on such a contentious issue as the Middle East, it is inevitable that someone will be offended and that someone’s core beliefs will be put to the test. As members of a freethinking institution we have a responsibility to put ourselves into situations that probe the mind and trouble the intellect. And it should be this way; it should be difficult and at times uncomfortable to confront such a profoundly human crisis as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
More than anything else, then, the recent controversy at our school demands that we have a discussion about the place of balance, that we consider its deeper meaning in this context. We should be troubled by this new standard for discourse and dialogue.
I am also compelled to come to the defense of this newspaper and my fellow editors in the face of President Ungar’s critique. We have placed his opinion on the front page of this issue because we felt it the right gesture, in keeping with our commitment to balanced coverage
The editors were divided on this issue, and at first I was inclined to place Mr. Ungar’s comments at the top of our opinion section with a large teaser on our front page banner, perhaps the size of a headline. Having searched our back files, I can say with confidence that placing an opinion piece on our front page is an unprecedented move; let no one accuse this newspaper of showing bias in this matter.
President Ungar’s was not the first critique of the quality of our publication. We have also recived criticism from another office because our coverage does not portray the college in the most flattering way.
Let me state here and now that The Quindecim has been, and ever shall be committed to critical coverage at this institution, and I will make no apologies to those who feel at a disadvantage because of it. Our goal is to be fair in the execution of this task, but it is not the job of the editorial board to tailor our coverage in an attempt to appease one constituency or another. It is within our power as editors to “fix” the coverage of this newspaper, to sound the trumpets of Goucher College for prospective students, donors, families, alumnae/i and other outside communities; but such a modification in our coverage would be an abuse of that power.
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