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SLPC's campus disinformation campaign
On Thursday night, Brandon Wilson, outreach coordinator for the Southern Poverty Law Center, visited the University of Dayton. Speaking before an audience of 400 students, faculty, and community members, Wilson urged his listeners to become "willing activists" in the fight to eliminate hate on campus. Arguing that students need to be "dedicated to ensure that colleges around the world embrace diversity," Wilson's message was that students who fight campus hate today are taking their place in the great tradition of peaceful agitation for civil rights. Wilson invoked Rosa Parks and other scions of that movement, urging Dayton students to ensure that theirs is a campus free from the kinds of hateful acts that have marred other campuses recently. "One month ago, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, a male urinated from his window on the head of an Asian woman," he told them.
It's a powerful example, and that's undoubtedly why Wilson chose it. The only problem with it is that it isn't true. It is true that one month ago, a Michigan student was accused of urinating off his balcony onto an Asian couple passing below. But what's also true is that the accusation was false. Witnesses to the event have all sworn that no one urinated on anyone; it has also been shown that it is physically impossible to urinate off the balcony in question. What is also true: Michigan activists jumped on the case as an instance of anti-Asian hate, demanded punishment for the accused and reparations from the administration, and stuck to their guns even when it became clear that the accusations just were not credible (it turns out that what landed on the people passing underneath the balcony was beer thrown by a student who did not check first to see if anyone was in his line of fire).
Wilson has his facts wrong--even though the truth about the Michigan case is readily verifiable online. He is spreading misinformation in order to create a problem where, at least in this instance, none exists. In the process, he discredits his cause, distorts the issues, and participates in the bad faith of the Michigan activists who came right out and said that it ultimately did not matter whether the event had happened or not, since it was such a useful platform from which to agitate for change.
All of this, it should be noted, was done in the name of the Southern Poverty Law Center's campus initiative, 10 Ways to Fight Hate on Campus. Perhaps it has not occurred to Wilson or the SPLC that one of the best ways to fight intolerance--which typically stems from ignorance--is to tell the truth.
Posted by acta online at October 29, 2005 05:11 PM
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