Liberals are tearing down Milo posters at UCI
On the same day the Vice Chancellor sends out an email about free speech
Liberals on the UCI campus have been recorded tearing down the posters advertising the Milo Yiannopoulos event, on the same day Vice Chancellor Partham has sent out an email about freedom of speech on campus.
Two women on the UCI campus were recorded tearing down posters publicizing Sunday’s Milo event. When asked what she was doing, the woman caught tearing down the posters told the camera that she was using her “freedom of speech”.
This caused woman behind the camera to respond, “You can’t use free speech to silence somebody else’s free speech.” The woman with the torn posters in her hands, saying: “Yes I can. It’s called an opinion.”
Responding to the news, Milo told The Tab UC Irvine: “They were such lovely posters.”
Vice Chancellor Partham sent a campus-wide email this afternoon emphasizing the importance of free speech.
The email starts by stating the obvious, this isn’t the first time campus officials have had to get involved in issues of free speech that arise on campus.
He said: “As a public university, we must respect the rights of all members of our community who wish to express opinion, voice support, critique an idea, or challenge existing notions that frame the nature of interactions among individuals, institutions, organizations and society generally.”
The email is reminiscent the article that UC President Janet Napolitano released last month, which stated that free speech needs to be upheld on all UC campuses, as long as it does not intimidate, threaten, or harass anyone.
Vice Chancellor Partham also points out that although as a public university, we must respect everyone’s right to free speech, it doesn’t mean that everyone agrees with it.
“However, the views of those representing one or even a few organizations, the speakers they invite to campus or their affiliated groups often do not represent the opinions of the other 32,000 students and 16,000 employees on this campus, or the values this university holds dear.”
He also states that the university is and will remain “neutral” in all issues concerning political speeches. However, the Vice Chancellor discloses that there are confines to what is acceptable as free speech on campus. Speeches that criticize sexual orientation, race, oppression, citizenship status, gender, or are derogatory or vulgar will not be accepted and will warrant the university to take action.
“We will not be neutral when acts of racism, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and oppression are paraded as sport intended to disrupt the cultural sensibilities of our diverse population. We will not be neutral when speakers and the crowds who support them use derogatory and vulgar language to insult and demean persons in our community on the basis of their race, citizenship status, gender or sexual orientation. We will not be neutral when degrading people’s culture and history of struggle becomes comic relief for local and national audiences who seek to affirm themselves and their ideology by belittling others.”
Vice Chancellor Partham ends his email statement on a strong note, stating that as Anteaters we must respect and uphold free speech, but also confront issues that disrupt our respect for one another.
“This is the best of who we are as a university, and while we defend freedom of speech for all who seek to exercise it, we wholeheartedly condemn people who would use their platform to denigrate, insult or berate members of our community for their own political gain.”
This email comes just days after students created a petition intended for Vice Chancellor Partham. The petition aims to ban Milo Yiannopoulos from returning to UCI this Sunday.
As of now, the petition has 1,051 signatures and needs just 449 more to reach their goal of 1,500.
A member of the the College Republicans at UCI has confirmed that the Milo Yiannopoulos event is still set to take place this Sunday 10/30 in the Crystal Cove Auditorium.
Tensions regarding freedom of speech are at an all time high at UCI.
We will see what happens when Milo visits UCI for the second time this Sunday.