Guest Column on UCSD: History is too easily forgotten

The following was submitted in response to a prior post on the recent controversy at UCSD, entitled “The UCSD Overreaction & the Death of Free Speech.” Mr. Schwartz responds to the italicized portions of that first article…

Guest Column
by Michael Schwartz

“The party was obviously meant to be funny although the theme was definitely in poor taste.”

That the theme was meant to be funny was not obvious to me. It sounded horrible offensive, racist, and threatening. It reminded me of growing up in the south not too long ago and some of the hateful things I saw happen there. Thank you for clarifying that they just were being funny. Racism is obviously hilarious to some.

“the administration of UCSD sent out not one, not two, but three emails within a week condemning the party”

I am sorry they stopped at three. If the intention was all in good fun, they would have worked with the administration early to clarify. As it stands, clearly their intentions were bad and to offend.

“The remedy for dangerous, offensive or extreme speech is more speech, not less,” this attitude was not to last.”

I don’t think they meant more racist speech. When you abuse rights, expect to lose that right. With rights comes responsibility. If you cannot handle that responsibility, you get a nanny state like we have in California. Then we have to spend time and money fighting to regain rights in court. Thanks.

“..the nature of the Koala, which is written to deliberately offend every race, religion, and belief system”

Sounds like it is good the school finally shut it down. Has anyone suggested guidelines to self-regulate so that this kind of offense does not happen again? A school regulating the content of a media outlet it owns has little to do with the First Amendment. UCSD is not the government. The First Amendment doesn’t apply to them.

“This is extremely troublesome, as the entitlement of these angry students displays their lack of concern for legal procedure and the Constitution.”

I am more concerned for your lack of concern for their concerns. They feel unsafe. I do not blame them. When people feel unsafe, their concern for legal procedure goes out the window. You are defending this party by painting it as just a happy-go-lucky joke and then condemning the people it mocks for feeling unsafe. Bad move. Then you call some of the people who attended the rally irrational. Again…in response to a party like you describe, their irrationality is pretty understandable. They pay tens of thousands to attend a school where students feel it is appropriate and fun to host a party where everyone has fun acting like a racist for a few hours.

“…the DJ for the event, who just so happens to call himself Jiggaboo Jones.”

He just so happened to have that name? What an odd coincidence: a man with a racially offensive nickname DJ-ing a party with racist overtones. Are you familiar with the term he uses? I am. I have seen violence break out just for saying this word. It’s not harmless. Words are meaningful.

You say this Compton Cookout is to be condemned, but then you promote a similar party at the end of your article? You and this group are not doing anything for anyone that is any good. Fighting for your First Amendment rights is a great battle to fight, but this is the wrong hill to die on.

You want us to judge if this is political correctness gone bad. Well…no. In my judgment it is not. The behavior you are promoting is why we all have to live with political correctness.

One thing you have changed my mind on is the need for black history month. We need it. History is too easily forgotten.

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Schwartz is a resident of Santee, a trust officer for a California business bank, and an active Second Amendment activist.