Participants raise familiar arguments Students from all walks of campus life came together last night to debate Part II of the Racial Harassment Policy in an open forum organized by Human Rights League founder Rashad Ibrahim, an Undergraduate Assembly member. UA representative Dan Schorr, whose First Amendment Task Force represents the opposing side to Ibrahim's Human Rights League, asked that the debate not be articulated along the usual "free speech vs. human rights" lines. Instead, he wanted students to try and look at the issue in a different light. But there was little moderator Eric Leathers, also a UA member, could do to prevent students from raising many of the familiar arguments. "When you attack someone racially, you attack the group he belongs to," Ibrahim said. "If someone insults Clinton before he becomes president, then he insults Clinton; if someone insults Clinton after he becomes president he's attacking the entire nation, which is treason – not all speech is protected by the First Amendment." Nominations and Elections Committee Vice Chairperson Mike Nadel questioned the ability of the Judicial Inquiry Office to enforce Part II, the so-called "speech code." "The events of last spring are proof that this system is not capable of enforcing [Part II]," he said. "The JIO is the criminal and Part II is their weapon – we need to disarm them." Part II of the Racial Harassment Policy forbids any "verbal or symbolic behavior" that "insults or demeans [a] person?on the basis of his or her race, color, ethnicity, or national origin?by the use of slurs, epithets, hate words, demeaning jokes, or derogatory stereotypes." Debate over the policy erupted this semester after Interim President Claire Fagin said she would consider suspending that section of the code. College freshman Jamil Smith said that if Part II were removed, he would be the one who was "disarmed," because he would have no way of fighting back. "If I can't exist in my own room without having someone call me up, calling me a nigger and threatening to blow up my 'nigger dorm,' why shouldn't I be able to go to the JIO?" he asked. Smith's comments were echoed by College freshman Kameke Sweeney, who questioned the legitimacy of hate speech as a form of intellectual discourse. "These words are only used by ignorant people and they do not bring about intellectual conversation," she said. "This policy at least forces us to get together and discuss these issues – without it we'd never get along." Schorr said Part II should be removed because, if anything, it has contributed to deteriorating race relations by stifling speech rather than promoting dialogue. "When you punish speech, you make martyrs out of bigots," he added. College junior Robyn Kent replied that, although Part II might not fight racism, at least it ensures some kind of justice. "It's great that we're all here to fight racism, but we're not representative of the Penn community," she said. "Having the policy or not won't prevent people from being racist, but it will make sure injustices are addressed."
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