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Saturday, November 01, 2003

More MEChA Madness

The Stanford Review, Stanford's conservative newspaper, recently ran an article that ticked off many campus Hispanics:
In an editorial titled �MEChA: Social Justice Group or KKK?� The Review called MEChA �a racist organization that advocates revolution and segregation,� dubbing it �the modern-day Ku Klux Klan of Chicanos.�

[...]


�We are open to criticism from the community,� said junior Laura Godinez-Avina, co-chair of MEChA. �But they were misinformed and, based on that misinformation, made judgments on our group that were libel.�
Sheesh. Libel. People can be so incredibly stupid.

But wait! The liberals at Stanford proceeded to get even stupider. Now, some dorms are actually restricting delivery of student publications:
In recent weeks, staff members at Casta�o House and Roble Hall decided to prohibit student groups such as The Review, The Stanford Chaparral and The Stanford Progressive from slipping publications under residents� doors. Those groups must now leave publications at dorms� main entrances.
I wonder where they got that idea from... Way to promote the free exchange of ideas, fellas. Fortunately, some campus progressives aren't going to take it sitting down:
�I would encourage my Progressive successors and [The Stanford Review] and such to violate it flagrantly,� said Josh Benson, former president of The Progressive.

Senior Michael Zakaras, chief editor of The Progressive, also expressed disagreement with the policy.

�I don�t think there is any question that this policy will negatively affect the readership of The Progressive,� he said. �Distributing door to door is the only way to guarantee that all the students at Stanford have a chance to read our paper.�

Zakaras believes that the possibility of offending students is no reason to stop door-to-door distribution.

�The few people who have been offended by a campus publication shouldn�t dictate dorm or campus policy,� he said. �Many more students will suffer from not getting publications delivered to them than the few students who will have to throw the papers away. In the end, unless the University can come up with a way to ensure the kind of wide readership that door-to-door distribution allows while at the same time protect the sensitive students from being offended, then we�ll continue to distribute.�
Perhaps Stanford will have a Left-Right free speech coalition out of this. Well, it's a start.

(This, and other great stuff, from the redoubtable Tongue-Tied.)

Posted by Emmett at 11:14 AM

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