A Double Standard

Readers of this blog who reside in the Twin Cities area are no doubt familiar with the recent events which have occurred at Hamline University in St. Paul. Six white students showed up at an off-campus Halloween party in a private residence dressed in blackface as African tribesmen. Stupid? Yes. Offensive? Probably, but most of the critics of the students' actions weren't at the party, and don't know exactly what the context of the students' behavior was. Regardless of whether people present at the party, or anyone for that matter, were actually offended, or if the intent of the students was to even try to offend people or was merely a misguided attempt to be funny, no laws were broken, and the students have the right under the First Amendment to dress however they wished. You know, free speech and all, something that academic institutions generally cherish and support. The school would be perfectly justified in condemning such an act by its students, and stating that such events are not welcome on its campus. Judging from Hamline's reaction, however, one would think that the aforementioned students had robbed and murdered someone.

After the university found out about the incident, it overreacted mightily, suspending the students from the football team indefinitely, and convening an investigation to see if "a university policy was violated". If so, "the students would go in front of a judicial board, where they could get a warning or even a suspension from school". Additionally, it has scheduled a number of university forums where navel-gazing and official indoctrination into how to think and what to believe about racial issues is no doubt number one on the agenda. Pretty heavy stuff for a failed attempt at Halloween humor, if you ask me. One wonders how they would treat other students who express themselves in a manner that offends people, especially students who use university resources to do so. Let's see, shall we?

While the high-ups at the university are busy flogging the costumed students for, well, being college students who do stupid stuff, which is pretty much every college student at one time or another, they would be wise to also take a look at the behavior of one Rashad Turner, a political science student at the school. Mr. Turner was apparently so agitated by the actions of the "Hamline Six" that he used the school's email system to send a message to every political science student, which is approximately one-third of the student body. A student at the school, who wishes to remain anonymous because they fear retaliation from the adminstration, was kind enough to forward me a copy of Turner's screed, which appears below in its entirety:

-----Original Message-----
From: "Rashad A. Turner" < rturner02@hamline.edu>
To: political-science-majors@hamline.edu
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 11:20:40 -0600 (CST)
Subject: one question, one thought

I just want to ask all you white people,(since you are the majority) would you ever, in your life, show up in black face to a party that was majority black people?..........NO, you wouldn't......and why wouldn't you? because you probably wouldn't make it home after that. Just a thought.....For the people that are thinking this act is "ok" and that the people that were involved didn't know this was racist. THATS TOTAL BS.....Chris Cushenberry had just spent 20 minutes in class were he watched a film, with the rest of the (racial and cultural minorities) class, where black face was shown and talked about in great detail, for at least twenty minutes. This was the Monday before the party. So to say that Chris Cushenberry had no knowledge that this was wrong, would be BS. Now lets move to Mr. Ed Elfman. Ed decided not to paint himself in black face, and rather just wear a fro' and some gold. Why did Elfman do this ? because he knew that to do what his other white friends wanted to do, was WRONG, and RACIST. So ED chose not to. Thank you ED. To the rest of the white boys that did this very despicable act. I would like to invite you to a party over on the North Side of Minneapolis this weekend. Please wear your costumes. :-)
-Rashad Turner

Mr. Turner apparently not only took it upon himself to psychoanalyze the students involved in the Halloween incident, he seems to have issued at least two threats to the political science students at Hamline, especially the ones he racially slurs as "white boys", while also managing to stereotype all of the residents of North Minneapolis as gangbangers and homies. (Bad, Mr. Turner. Stereotyping is a no-no, even for "students of color" in today's academic world. You seem to be more in need of "diversity training" than the idiot partiers.)

After several of the recipients of Turner's inflammatory email complained to Hamline officials, David S. Stern, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs, sent the following response out to the poli-sci majors:

Dear Hamline community,
Over the past several days a recent incident involving Hamline students has understandably become a source of intense controversy and conflict. I want to take this opportunity to reassure and remind all members of the Hamline community that our primary concern is to ensure a safe environment for all of our students, faculty, and staff, where the teaching and learning process is safe and secure for all.
The university's formal procedures for investigating and responding to this incident are well under way. We respectfully ask for your patience and cooperation as this process moves toward resolution.
We urge all members of the university community to refrain from any and all action that is based on retaliation or intimidation; such actions are unacceptable. Those who engage in such activity will be held accountable and may be subject to disciplinary actions or sanctions. We encourage you to participate in upcoming university-wide forums and events that will provide opportunities for all interested parties to express their concerns about the questions and issues this incident has raised. Times and dates for the forums and events will be provided in the near future.
We understand this is a challenging time for all of us, and we are confident that we will continue to learn and grow as a community by embracing the values of social justice, civic responsibility, and inclusive leadership and service that are the hallmarks of Hamline University.
David S. SternVice President for Academic and Student Affairs

So, students do something, however dumb and offensive it actually was, on their own time, off-campus, at a private residence, and break no laws, and get bounced from all extracurricular activities and put under official university investigation and threatened with suspension.

Another student, seemingly deciding to be the arbiter of all things diversity at the college, uses university property to issue inflammatory racial threats and attempts to intimidate an entire department at the school, and he gets gently chided and "may be subject to disciplinary action" if he continues.

Does anyone else see the double standard here? Let's not drop the ball now, Mr. Stern. If you are going to prosecute anyone who says or does anything that offends anyone even in the slightest, then you can't let Rashad Turner get away with his nice little message as well, as he goes well beyond offensive, and arguably into threat territory.

After all, it's the color-blind thing to do.