"One person's hate speech is another person's education"
Now that (retired) Vice Chancellor Manuel Gomez used his last day in office at UC-Irvine to reduce the suspension of the Muslim Student Union from one year to one quarter (expiring December 31, 2010), one wonders how the MSU is reacting to the suspension, which will keep them out of action from now till the end of the year.
http://www.msu-uci.com/
I see that it is business as usual at UCI, for the MSU. It appears that the MSU is planning a special get in touch social at the Doheny Beach room at the UCI, Student Center. I thought that MSU events were banned for the Fall semester. Does than not mean you MSU events are banned from the campus? What do I not understand?
ReplyDeleteWhen you are kicked off campus, this should mean your off campus. Oh well, UCI Adminstrator business as usual.
Squid
Well Squid, I would surmise that if said scheduled event goes forward in October, that there is NO suspension.
ReplyDeleteWink wink, nod nod.
Notice that the MSU doesn't indicate any acknowledgement of any wrongdoing. They only play the well worn victim card again and claim the penalty is too harsh. There is no contrition and certainly no indication that they will refrain from doing the exact same thing again.
ReplyDeleteGomez did not take this into consideration as most judges do when meting out penalties. Good riddance to him.
Inasmuch as the MSU still has their registration event still scheduled on campus it looks like it will be business as
usual for the MSU. Previous complaints about this event were defended by UCI attorney by pointing out that the decision was not final yet and they could shedule an event on campus because they were not yet suspended. Now it seems that the excuse is that UCI doesn't have sufficient resources to monitor the MSU (!) now.
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Well, if they're not contrite, they're not going to show contrition. So what? If they're banned, they're banned. When the ban is over, they're free to operate. If they break university policy, they can be banned again, for longer. They don't have to agree, they just can't exist on university property doing things contrary to the purposes of the "limited open forum" that is campus organizations.
ReplyDeleteSiarlys,
ReplyDeleteIf they are banned there should be no October event, right? If the October event goes ahead, then they are not banned (at least by my wacky reasoning.)
Or maybe it's they are banned, but not banned.
Alice in universityland
The problem is that they don't see anything wrong with what they did. They are oppositional defiant to UCI codes of conduct and normal cultural mores in our society.
ReplyDeleteAnother problem is that UCI is extremely lax in disciplining them. They ignore, excuse, justify, and mildly discipline the MSU for their multiple and ongoing violations of Campus policies. So they just won't be banned again as a practical matter. There is even a big question now on whether the current ban will actually be enforced. This enables and encourages them to go on to bigger and better things.
Gary and I have a long history with this particular situation and we know wherefrom we speaketh.
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If the October event comes off, let us know. You are correct that if they are operating on campus, then they are not banned from campus.
ReplyDeleteThat's a separate question from whether they are contrite. They can be contrite and banned, contrite and not banned, not contrite and banned, or not contrite and not banned.
Personally, I never offer an apology because someone else thinks I should. If I'm sorry, I say so. If I don't, I'm probably not.
Actually, the MSU was suspended, not banned, as a recognized campus organization, meaning that they are not allowed to have events on campus. I suppose they could still organize and do whatever they want off campus. As of this moment, they are still advertising an event on campus during the suspension period.
ReplyDeleteThe separate matter of contrition has to do with whether the punishment is meaningful to them. If the disciplining doesn't deter them it is meaningless. They have not signaled in any way that they believe that anything they did was wrong. That means that UCI failed, once again, to educate their Muslim students what it means to be a decent citizen.
If you went before a judge with similar disdain for the law or the punishment meted out for breaking the law on say, drunk driving charges, you would likely get a longer sentence to be sure you understood why you were being punished.
In the UCI case, where the MSU always faces lenient judges, they feel free to continue to violate the campus code of conduct and university policies. They feel, like so many other extremist Muslims, that they have a higher calling than to assimilate into the American culture and follow its laws and customs. We see the same thing in the European countries where the Muslims try to be their own nation with their own Sharia law within their host nation until they can take over that nation entirely.
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