The Tunnelvision panel certainly cleared the waters on the legality of the First Amendment rights of students and the University, as well as squandered the cries of hate crime. While all who spoke denounced the speech, there were still attendants who called for the closing of the Free Expression Tunnel, in varying ways. However, this is not the way for our campus to deal with it.
Things like this incident have happened before. The painting in 2008 was the hot topic of the evening, however few mentioned the derogatory words written over the GLBT’s event or the anti-Christian or Semitic speech that students find every day. The latter circumstances could be comparatively the same, but the question is why it is this speech suddenly such a problem that is calls for the closing of the tunnel.
Students should not let the actions and, more importantly, the reactions of a few cause consequences for all. Closing the tunnel will make minorities feel safer, however the entire campus, the minorities included, will no longer have an integral forum to cause discussion. By squandering the discussion, it doesn’t got away. As Greg Wallace, a law professor from Campbell Law School said, “the cure for bad speech is not less speech, but more speech.”
Education is about learning from a variety of experiences and dialogue is included. Not all dialogue will be positive. Next time a student sees something in the tunnel that offends them, they shouldn’t complain about it. They need to take action and paint it, learn from it and move on. It wouldn’t be the last time they would experience hate in the world, because it is ever present. It is in the workplace, around the neighborhood, all around you. But by being proactive and moving on, we can learn from the experience, but also move on as a community.
Advocates for and against closing the tunnel agreed closing it would not solve the real problem of intolerance. Minorities are targeted, however if they react and get defensive we cannot act as a community to defend and support them. By reacting positively by painting over the derogatory paintings and rallying behind anyone targeted in the tunnel, we can show we are going to deal with intolerance in the tunnel as a community by stating we won’t tolerate it.
