Max Karson’s Campus Press "Satire" Draws Rally And Suspension, Even More Calls For Apologies

“It will never be law, however, because the Supreme Court, no matter how conservative or liberal it might be, will never approve its manifest capriciousness, both as law and social policy. But it can weasel its way into practice if people who should know better, people such as Chancellor Peterson and Dean Voakes, validate “offensiveness” as the arbiter of free speech in university discourse. That is the kind of thing that really does do damage”–Peter Michelson, Professor emeritus of English at CU

Max Karson

Rallying to protest Max Karson and the Campus Press, singing “We Shall Overcome”

Max Karson’s “satirical” editorial continues to enrage the professionally outraged activists at CU:

The University of Colorado student author of an opinion column that garnered national attention for saying Asians “hate us all” and should be hated back was suspended from the Campus Press newspaper staff Wednesday.

“Max Karson’s duties with the Campus Press have been suspended pending a restructuring of the opinions section,” according to a statement posted on the student paper’s Web site Wednesday.
. . .
The statement goes on to say that the publication’s editors are in the process of organizing an “open, public forum to address diversity sensitivity in our news coverage” and are rewriting their ethics policy.

The announcement came the same day university officials said they’re close to announcing major changes in the way the paper is operated and overseen.

The transparency of the process is astounding:

Faculty members within the CU School of Journalism and Mass Communication met behind closed doors for more than two hours Wednesday to discuss how to best change the management structure of the Campus Press, a class that operates within the school, so that offensive content doesn’t get published.

Concessions, concessions–and more apologies from the CU administration:

Paul Voakes, dean of the journalism school, did release a statement from the faculty group that served equally as an apology.

“This (column) is the antithesis of what we’re trying to teach in our school,” Voakes said. “The faculty and I take responsibility for the offense that the Campus Press obviously has caused.”

He called Karson’s column an “editorial mistake” that should have been caught.

Even local politicians have gotten involved:

Boulder City Manager Frank Bruno released a statement saying, “Discrimination is not what Boulder is about.”

Unless you’re a conservative in Boulder.

More faux rage, and the Feds!:

Also, about 150 students gathered on the University Memorial Center south plaza for a rally and demonstration against the Campus Press.

Chris Choe, a 21-year-old senior and member of the Korean American Students at Boulder group who led the rally, said he hopes the university’s administration fundamentally changes how content is reviewed before it’s published by the class.

“I want to see responsibility,” Choe said. “I want to see that this isn’t being marginalized.”

Later, the group migrated to a large auditorium on the campus for a forum among Campus Press representatives, CU officials and student leaders.

Federal mediators brought in by student organizers from the U.S. Department of Justice moderated the public meeting, in which students continued to call for changes at the online student paper and in which Campus Press editors offered apologies for any pain that Karson’s column caused.

Finally, the Campus Press editors offered their mea culpas to the seething ragists:

“The mistake that I made when I published the article was thinking that my reactions spoke for everyone,” Editor-in-Chief Cassie Hewlings, who sat somberly through the meeting, told the crowd. “I am so incredibly sorry. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.

“I’ve learned more this past week than I have my whole 22 years of life.”

You’re right Cassie. There is no place for free speech–including stupid, misguided (but publicity-seeking) satire–in Boulder, or at CU.

Text of the complete Campus Press apology.

Professor emeritus Peter Michelson excoriates the cult of “offensiveness” that threatens free speech on college campuses (but can’t help himself in taking a swipe at conservative media in the process):

In the context of education these are plausible punishments. But the real lesson here is that free speech at CU — i.e. speech for which one will not be, as the Chinese have it, “re-educated” — is subject to the literary standards of a not particularly literate chancellor, the offensiveness quotient of a Student Diversity Advisory Board and anonymous “professional journalists of color,” and opinion standards of “experienced opinion editors.” If these journalists and editors of opinion were to include personnel from, say, The Washington Times, The National Review, and the Fox network as well as the tasteful local media, to say nothing of the Camera’s Heath Urie and CU’s own PR department, then the standards of vulgarity, mendacity, incompetence and offensiveness should not set the bar beyond the reach of even such a determinedly errant student writer/editor as Max Karson.

But then, how “wrong” was Mr. Karson? If one goes to the Campus Press Web site, one can read his column. Contrary to the chancellor’s characterization, it is clearly indicated as opinion and commentary, and it is conspicuously obvious as satire. Further, its satirical context reveals how the presumably professional Camera reporter’s description “got it wrong.” So why would the dean of the journalism school ignore the evidence before his eyes, precisely what the Campus Press faculty adviser had seen and apparently approved, and take up the chancellor’s righteously wrong-headed cudgel?

The real issue here is not whether Mr. Karson’s satire is poor or sophomoric. Nor is it an issue of “damage,” as the chancellor claimed. Whatever the resolutions of CU’s Student Union Legislative Council or the public “upset” for which Dean Voakes felt obliged to apologize, Karson’s article could not and has not damaged anyone or thing, including the reputation of the university. The real issue is that the chancellor feared or was told it was “offensive.”

Offensiveness is what accounts for how the reporter, the chancellor and the dean took a shot at Kid Karson’s epistle and “got it wrong.” A cult of offensiveness has developed out of a “feel good’ ethos, whereby everybody is supposed to have the right to feel good. Its ideology thrives on college campuses and even extends to the law. Serious legal scholars have proposed that First Amendment rights be measured by the offensiveness quotient of an utterance, that one’s right to speak be moderated by whether it offends Mrs. Grundy or the ACLU or the Moral Majority or the Muslim community or the Asian community or Chancellor “Bud” Peterson.

It will never be law, however, because the Supreme Court, no matter how conservative or liberal it might be, will never approve its manifest capriciousness, both as law and social policy. But it can weasel its way into practice if people who should know better, people such as Chancellor Peterson and Dean Voakes, validate “offensiveness” as the arbiter of free speech in university discourse. That is the kind of thing that really does do damage.

So much for diversity of opinion at CU.

Max Karson’s Latest Attention Scheme Results In Diversity Training

CU student and self-styled provocateur Max Karson’s latest foray into the world of the First Amendment and adolescent attention-mongering has resulted in–you guessed it–mandatory “diversity training” and other politically correct “reeducation”. The goal? A more “nuanced” Campus Press staff at CU:

The University of Colorado student newspaper’s staff will undergo diversity training and meet other measures outlined Thursday by CU officials in response to a column published earlier this week that said Asian people should be rounded up, “hog-tied” and “forced to eat bad sushi.”
. . .
On Thursday, five editors of the Campus Press and faculty advisor Amy Herdy met for 90 minutes with Paul Voakes, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, to talk about how to deal with fallout from Karson’s column.
. . .
He said the Campus Press also will work with Dave Martinez, the school’s diversity coordinator, to establish a Student Diversity Advisory Board composed of non-journalism majors who “represent a broad swath of interests on the campus,” which will provide editors with regular feedback.

The Campus Press also agreed in the meeting to:

Invite student organizations to meet face-to-face with the editors.

Adopt an “opinions policy,” with standards and procedures for determining the acceptability of opinion columns or reader-generated content.

Schedule a series of diversity-awareness workshops for the entire staff with the CU Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, with participation of professional journalists of color.

Host a series of workshops for opinion writing and editing, to be presented by experienced professional opinion editors.

“I’m confident that the current crop of editors has begun to develop a new, more nuanced understanding of the delicate balance between absolute free speech and journalistic social responsibility,” Voakes wrote. “I also want to apologize on behalf of the school for the upset that our student publication has created.”

Instituting “diversity training” seminars and a kangaroo non-journalism-but-PC-advisory-board are hardly startling, especially for a moonbat liberal campus that can’t seem to grasp satire (even if poorly written).

What is disappointing is the dean’s necessarily PC notion of trying to “balance” between “absolute free speech” and “journalistic social responsibility”. Karson’s column–distasteful and perhaps misguided–and the editors’ decision to run the piece can and should be criticized. But blurring the line of free speech latitude with cumbersome PC “advisory boards” and the ambiguous “social responsibility” mantra is the true threat in this instance.

Karson is a hack, albeit a dedicated one. CU’s damage control went into overdrive (as it has in the past), seeking to deflect or mitigate another potentially damaging story. Where are the Ward Churchill acolytes to support Karson’s free speech protections? Or is there (yes there is!) a double-standard? Had Karson targeted white Christian conservative males, there would surely be cries in defense of his rights to push the “boundaries” and challenge the status quo. Instead, he chose Asians as the vehicle for his satire.

Karson may not be funny, but once again the joke is on CU.

The Drunkablog has more background on Karson’s previous free speech flaps at CU.

Max Karson’s Arresting Comments–Overreaction And Censorship Or Sensible Precaution?

CU student Max Karson’s ill-timed comments (the question of legality is to be decided, as you will see below) have earned him notoriety, an arrest for “interference”, and suspension from school pending his trial:

A University of Colorado student has been arrested after making “threatening” comments in class that seemed sympathetic toward the gunman who killed 32 students at Virginia Tech, authorities said.

Max Karson of Denver was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution.
. . .
University police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said that during a class discussion of the Virginia Tech massacre, Karson “made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people.”

Several witnesses told investigators Karson said he was “angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people,” according to a police report.
. . .
Karson has also produced a video on youtube that ends in a deadly shooting he called a comedy.

The film has been made private since I viewed it; it depicted Karson as a jokester given three minutes to make another guy laugh–he is ultimately unsuccessful, and the other individual shoots him. His site is still up for now. The class, for what its worth, was a women’s black studies course.

His father, a University of Denver professor, argues that his son’s words, however ill-advised, we’re neither illegal nor threatening. The school, in his opinion, has violated his free speech rights. Attorney David Lane, of Ward Churchill fame, suggests that a violation of free speech may have occurred, but his ambiguous statement about killings are questionable, and context is important.

What were Karson’s words? There is little detail, other than this purported quote:

“If anyone in here says that they’ve never been so angry that you wanted to kill 32 people, you’re lying,” Karson said, according to a statement made by a CU faculty member.

People say stupid things all the time; in the heat of passion, words become weapons. Most people would readily admit that in a particularly angry state they have made some statement along the lines of “I am so angry I could do . . . to that person.” But serious contemplation of killing innocent people (not in self-defense)? Highly unlikely. Context is important, as is the state of mind of the person making such a declaration. Karson’s intent is clearly in question.

In this case, Karson’s words unsurprisingly disturbed his classmates and teacher. His previous record of antagonizing CU’s administration and fellow students gives a picture of Karson as an agent provacateur, willing to engage others with (to his mind) alternative points-of-view. My defense of his writings last November (a search of his name yields more on his past).

In light of the events at VT, his statements threw up all the usual red flags, and earned him his arrest and suspension. They may earn him more than just notoriety. They also call attention to the heightened state of emotion following the VT massacre–Karson’s words, if made in class just last week, would have perhaps raised eyebrows and snickering from his fellow students. This week, he went to jail.

The debate over how to prevent future Columbines and VT massacres includes the discussion of intervention when “red flags” are apparent. Is the fear justified or is Karson’s audience overreacting? Second-guessing becomes the name of the game following any tragedy. One can understand CUPD’s desire to protect students and faculty from potential harm. People across the country would be hopping mad if the CUPD heard complaints about Karson and failed to take action.

So which is it? Can we have it both ways–unfettered free speech (unless inciting violence, which is at question here) or the “mask” of safety in charging those with disturbing thoughts and expressions with crimes, so as to prevent larger catastrophes?

Karson has earned himself, rightly or wrongly, a day in court. The context of his statements will be revealed in more detail. Is having disturbing (to others) thoughts a crime? Is he victim of of his own poor judgment and timing? Or has CUPD averted a future massacre? It is doubtful the court decision will render a definitive answer, but the outcome will assuredly lead to more questions on how or if we can avoid yet another Columbine or VT massacre.