Still at the University of Virginia (I say “still” because of my immediately preceding post)….
Beta Bridge on the UVa grounds serves as a traditional and accepted canvas for political sloganeering. Students paint (and re-paint and re-paint) messages of support or opposition to whatever or whomever strikes their fancy. Last week Students for Peace and Justice of Palestine painted a message of support for Palestinian statehood at midnight one night. By the next morning, reports the Cavalier Daily, ” a white block had been painted over the word “Palestine” and the word “deserves” had been struck through.”
Rather than regard the opposition it engendered as simply an example of robust political debate of the sort one might expect and welcome at “Mr. Jefferson’s University,” the Cavalier Daily reported that the message had been “desecrated,” and Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine “filed a Bias Incident Report and notified the Minority Rights Coalition….”
In a Cavalier Daily opinion piece on Friday, “Brushing Over The Problem,” four members of the offended and complaining student group claimed that painting over their message amounted to an “act of intolerance [that] is clearly unacceptable and should be condemned by all.”
The attempted erasure of a word that identifies a group of individuals at the University and throughout the world is a testament to the lack of acceptance this group faces. This is especially worrying when we are at an institution that prides itself on the diversity and acceptance fostered among its members….
…. The issue is that the Palestinian question constantly is ignored and shoved aside. It is erased from the public eye because it leads to people asking uncomfortable questions and making tough decisions that may or may not affect us directly. Many people who oppose the Palestinian cause try to dismiss the reality of the situation in Palestine because they are unable to accept the Palestinian ethnic group’s right to self-determination and dignity.
The objective of this vandalism was to dismiss Palestine, to ignore it, to shove it aside because the perpetrator of the crime is uncomfortable with the reality it presents….
Because a Bias Incident Report has been filed, Allen Groves, associate vice president and dean of students, explained, it must be investigated, and he added that “interpreting this incident is challenging because it is unclear whether the changes to the message sent a political statement or were bias-motivated.”
In all likelihood the “vandals” will never be apprehended or punished. As Dean Groves, the would-be speech proctor, recognized, “someone could potentially say his action was a political statement made in response to another political statement.”
Well, yes, someone could and no doubt would say that, but being forced to say it in response to an investigation by the Dean of Students itself represents an affront to free political speech. It is disturbing, but no longer surprising, that an aggrieved minority group regards vigorous disagreement as discrimination.
