fighting racism at Brown

Below you will find a letter from Lewis Gordon, a philosopher and director
of African-American studies at Brown University. Gordon has been under
attack for supporting student activists who opposed the publication of
David Horowitz's ad opposing reparatons in the Brown daily.

Gordon's letter does not reveal some pertinent background. An article from Horowitz (!!) in today's Chicago Tribune (more free speech for racism) reveals that students at Brown responded to the publication of his racist ad in the Brown daily by gathering up the copies and destroying them. BRAVO!!!

The fact that money can buy expression and that direct action can counter this effect of money, even if only in a small way, makes a profound political point about power and political action. This gives us even more reason to support the Brown anti-racists. Can anyone get more information about what has been going on at Brown?

Paul

From Lewis Gordon:

Here is an updated letter I have been sending to answer the many queries.
 

Again, thanks for your support,
---Lewis
 
 
 
 

                                                                        23 March 2000*
 

It has come to my attention that my actions over the past week have been grossly misrepresented by some
members of the media and the Brown University community.  I am accused of being an enemy of free speech, of
saying things like “the First Amendment is antiquated. . . .”  I have no recollection of saying such a thing.  Here
are the facts.   I was contacted by students who felt that there was not support for them at Brown because of the
Acting President publically condemning them last week without also including a condemnation of the racist assaults
and rebuffs they had received prior to and after the incident.  They wanted to meet with the Press but felt there was
no safe environment in which to do so.  So, I offered a room in the office building over which I am director.  The
students met with the Press but refused to be filmed in order to maintain their anonymity.  I was concerned that
they were not filmed because they were a multiracial group of students (Whites, Blacks, Latinos, Asians), but the
national coverage was constructing them as exclusively Black and “Black Extremists.”  In my interview with ABC
and New England Cable and Fox, I said that what concerned me was that the ad was both hate speech and a
solicitation for financial support to develop antiblack ad space.  I was concerned that it would embolden white
supremacists and antiblack racists.
        The next day I received hate phone calls, hate mail, and the situation has become such that I have to take
precautions for the safety of the staff in Afro-American Studies at Brown and my family.  I subsequently found out
that Black students were being harassed by virtue of the mistaken claim that the “coalition” consisted only of
Black students—in spite of, again, the fact that it was multiracial.  In other words, I was concerned that Black
students were becoming scapegoats for whatever other hostilities people outside of the Brown community may
have against, perhaps, Brown’s identity as a “liberal institution” or against the presence of Black people at Brown.
        I spoke out against the harm suffered by Black students and staff since the emergence of this conflict, and I
stressed the need for the Brown community to defend their right to assemble, work, and in some cases (e.g.,
students)  live on this campus.  I received many letters of support from Brown faculty who were, however, afraid of
speaking publically.   In other words, tenured professors were afraid of voicing their opinion in public!  Thus, I
became the only public critic of the university’s handling of the situation, until March 21st, where another faculty
member came out as a voice of dissent.
        My public position is that what happened last week reflects both questions of the parameters of responsible
versus irresponsible activities on the part of the press and the question of racism.   I was also concerned that the
public spaces at Brown were being bullied into white spaces versus spaces for the entire Brown community
regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, and class.  I am concerned that some critics of my actions defend
newspapers, television, and radio—media through which funds to purchase time are costly—over another
important free speech issue: rights of assembly.  People who cannot afford, as Horowitz was able, to purchase
space to air their points of view rely only on places of assembly with the hope of coverage from the other venues.  I
am also concerned that Horowitz has been presented by many of my critics as a “minority” voice when in fact the
position that Black people should not receive reparations is a majority position.  The distinction between a minority
version of a majority opinion and a racial minority, for instance, was blurred in the conflict.
        I have become a scapegoat on these matters.  No matter what I say publically, I am attacked as an enemy of
free speech—as the continued flurry of derisive mail attest.  The record is that I am being attacked by such critics
for exercising my right to disagree with them.  In effect, they attack me because I do not share their point of view.
Free speech for them seems to mean only their point of view.
        The Constitution protects free speech and our right to assemble.  There is also an equal protection clause.
The events that have unfolded are clear indications that racism is still such that equal protection of Black people is
still in the making.
        Finally, I should like to make a statement on the forum held on March 22, 2000.  The Dean of the College
organized the forum to address the fragmentation of the Brown community and affirm that the campus is not meant
to be for “whites only.”    He also wanted an environment in which the members of the school paper, the coalition,
the rest of the Brown community (faculty, deans, workers) can meet and speak honestly without threat.  That I
have been so severely rebuked for simply demanding both an affirmation of free speech and a condemnation of
racism signaled to him and the other organizers how nasty the situation was and there was fear that no one would
speak out from such threats.   My role in the organization of the panel of experts was to demand that it include
white faculty with diverse views on these issues.   That is what was assembled, and that is what we had last night, a
panel designed to articulate the issues at stake since there were so many heated positions floating around the
campus.
        The Dean of the College told the Press that they could have a press conference after the panel, but there was
concern about their presence harassing people who may not have wanted to be on camera or for their identities to
be made public.   The students met.  The Dean and others came out afterward.  And the Press wasn’t there.  They
waited in the rain, and then went home.
        The next day, I was shocked to find out that a student from the campus paper went on a talk show and imputed
to me inflammatory words that I simply did not say.  That student’s lie stimulated an environment of fascist, violent
reaction that included sending a black student a threatening letter with a picture of a mutilated black child;
countless telephone and email threats of violence to black students; and my receiving an intensified rush of hate
mail.   The circumstance exemplifies my early observation that hate words are not in the spirit of speech but harm.
I subsequently met with several stations.  I am answering the many phone calls from press officials.   It is taking
me time.   I have, after all, as do  many other professors, obligations to my family, my students, my colleagues, and,
through my effort to defend the right of assembly and speech for those in the genuine minority, the community.
        Now, to my chagrin, I am being vilified.  I am being accused of things I did not say, and I am being attacked for
not only being a minority, but a minority who speaks out and has taken the risk of trying my best to assure that
students can assemble peaceably at Brown with the assurance that it is an institution in which each of them is
welcomed as a full member.

Sincerely,

Lewis R. Gordon
Professor of Afro-American Studies, Religious Studies, and Modern Culture and Media
 
 

*I wrote this letter on March 22nd and revised it for March 23rd as more facts unfolded.  Since then, even more information has
come to light, which would have required rewriting the entire letter.  I have thus decided to write this addendum.
        On Friday, March 23rd, I appeared on The O’Reilly Factor on the FOX Television Station.  In that interview, a tape was
played that was truly shocking.  It was a clip from an interview with several members of the Brown Daily Herald editorial
board and staff.  The BDH staff’s interview was conducted and aired on Wednesday, March 21st while I was in Providence
speaking at the Forum under the auspices of the Dean of the College.  The BDH members stated the following slanderous
claims: (1) that I was the organizer of the student coalition and the mastermind behind their actions and (2) that they had
attended several forums on free speech in which I attacked the first amendment as “antiquated.”  What they had done, in other
words, was worst than I had thought, and they had in effect, through their lies, irresponsibly rallied across the nation a lynch-mob
mentality against me, the Program in Afro-American Studies, and black students at Brown.  In my reply, I stated much of what
is included in this letter.  I pointed out that I had not got involved in the events until the Sunday (that is, two days after the
removal of papers), and I had done so because of my concern that there was a witch-hunt mentality that called for the
preclusion of the students’ guilt and condemnation of the entire black community at Brown.  I pointed out that I was concerned
that the First Amendment right of peaceful assembly—necessary especially for those who cannot afford to purchase
advertisement time in newspapers, magazines, and on television and radio—was in jeopardy and that I was concerned about the
racial climate leading to an environment of disregarding the students’ right of equal protection and due process.  The host of that
program stated that he would like the entire faculty of Brown to gather and condemn the students.  I responded that it is
irresponsible for people to make judgments and sentences without knowing the facts, without going through the process of a
tribunal, and without even having reflected on the issues.  In effect, he was demanding a totalitarian environment.  He
responded that 80% of the U.S. population is against paying reparations to Blacks.  I replied that such a fact places Horowitz in
a majority position, which makes the demand to bully the 20% minority over to his side a desire more for totalitarianism than
for a majority position (which is already there).  I pointed out as well that the offensiveness of the advertisement was
exacerbated by the solicitations for funds of up to $1000 to continue the author’s “cause.”  In many ways, the economic
dimension of such activities substantiates my point on the class and race dimensions of what was going on.  It is no accident
that the right of assembly is under attack by such groups who, in the end, prefer a press that money can buy or, in other words,
a purchased public sphere.  I concluded by reiterating that the lies those students told have harmed a community of people,
and the harm they have done to me is salacious.  It is irresponsible for so many people in the nation to have simply presumed the
accuracy and responsibility of an unsupervised group of young people between the ages of 16 and 21 running a commercial
newspaper and having the nation’s confidence at its disposal.  That group (the editors and staff of the BDH) abused this
privilege by terrorizing students and faculty.  The ire dished against me was an effort to beat the Brown faculty into submission
for the purpose of presenting a lie of unanimity or, again, total condemnation of their critics and anyone who may have given the
multiracial group of protesting students the benefit of the doubt and room to assemble and present their points of view to the
concerned public.
        Since this is in effect a second letter, I would like to conclude by thanking the people who have supported me in any way.
I appreciate the department that sent flowers, candy, and a card in support of me and my colleagues; I appreciate the letters of
solidarity some of you sent; I appreciate the members of the Brown faculty (and those at other universities) who are beginning
to stand up and organize groups against the efforts to bully the faculty into what would clearly be an environment that smacks of
fascism; I appreciate those members of the press who acted responsibly over the past week by checking the facts and
remembering that there is more than one side to many stories; and I appreciate the letter of apology from the concerned citizen
to whom I had sent the original version of this letter.

Lewis Gordon
March 24, 2000