The University Senate will vote on a resolution today condemning the Chancellor for allowing free speech at the Homecoming Parade. The resolution, authored by Professor Beldon Fields condemns the University for allowing Chief Illiniwek to be present at the Homecoming Parade, arguing this display prevents the University from regulating offensive speech.
Here is the resolution : http://www.senate.uiuc.edu/eq0801.asp
Hmm, that's an interesting bit of lawyering, so to speak. It's not that they are condemning the chancellor, nor are they directly asking him to disallow any displays of Chief logos, but they are asking the UIUC administration to disassociate itself from Homecoming and make it a fully Alumni Association sponsored event - presumably with the notion that the students displaying the Chief logo will be violating a copyright that is not owned by the UIAA. This absolves the faculty senate of being in the uncomfortable position of advocating that the administration take a "big brother" stance with students and other groups making parade floats - instead the administration will only be protecting its own intellectual property when the offending logo is displayed.
Being one of the few Chief agnostics, I can't help but think that the anti-Chiefs are in danger of overplaying their hands (to the extent that they haven't already). The Chief is no longer officially supported, and although some folks will always wear the shirts and be into the whole Chief thing, in time that will all fade. The faculty senate has too many ants in their collective pants to let that happen organically - once again, the anti-Chiefs have trouble taking yes for an answer.
It makes you wonder - if it becomes a fully UIAA event, does that mean that the money that is brought in for various Homecoming activities will go directly to the UIAA, instead of the university or UI Fdn? Who makes the decisions about how that money gets spent? My guess is that the governing board of the UIAA is far more pro-Chief than the administration is. The faculty senate should be careful for what they wish for - they might get it.
I dunno. The University isn't officially supposed to use the logo. But there are no rules about what individual fans or alumni do in their own private tributes, as long as they are not manufacturing NEW items with the logo on.
If the parade is made to be officially an alumni event (rather than a University event), then it seems to me that would leave participants free to wear all the Chief stuff they want, as long as none of it is new merchandise that violates the licensing rules. So, they'd be freer to proclaim Chief love, while leaving the faculty out of it, so that the faculty no longer have to explain to their peers elsewhere all about the Chief and deal with the resulting baggage.
In other words, I think this might be a sincere move on the faculty's part to simply get out of the shadow of the Chief, which has long been a goal, particularly after the official line on him started being that it was somehow educational about actual Indians.
This really hasn't been addressed, but the University can't refuse to let individuals mention the Chief or display their duly purchased Illiniwek items. Part or licensing something is the understanding that others will use your trademark as they wish, as long as they are not profiting from it. With that out, it's time to note that this is a public institution (somehow still is, anyway) and therefore it should not be deeming what speech is acceptable and what speech is not. Collegiate policies demanding tolerant or politically correct speech have been shot to hell in the federal courts in this country because they attempt to do exactly what the faculty wishes to do here--control the thoughts of the masses so that no one is offended and so that their political agenda is furthered. Oh, to think of the days when academia was the great marketplace of ideas--perhaps it's now the Casey's General Store of ideas--your necessary items are there but don't expect a variety in brands.
Oh, to think of the days when academia was the great marketplace of ideas--perhaps it's now the Casey's General Store of ideas--your necessary items are there but don't expect a variety in brands.
Oh, to think of the days when academia was the great white, male only marketplace of ideas?
Such nostalgia for an early era always creeps me out a bit...
No one is squelching free speech here. The University has decided that representatives of the University will not promote or use the Chief while engaged in that representation. They're free to do this, as any other employer is. Meanwhile, we can all wear Chief stuff to work and hang those "paint the hall Chief!" signs wherever we want, it's not a problem. The guy two cubes down from me has a huge cling sticker Chief on the window, many people have posters on their doors involving the Chief. Not a problem. Meanwhile the guy two doors down has anti-Chief materials on his door, also not a problem.
Alumni (as well as current students) are, as always, free to wear Chief stuff whenever and wherever they want to. Nothing's changed. If the parade becomes fully alumni sponsored, with a clean line between it and the official representatives of the U, that just makes it extra clear that the U is not associated directly with whatever Chief images might be used, so there's an extra buffer, and even more "let them do what they want, it's not official" freedom. They already realized that trying to say "no Chief" at all on floats, when half the floats are just RSOs anyway, wasn't right, and amended that policy, but now it's even clearer.
Meanwhile, many of the faculty (and others) who have cringed over the "the Chief is educational about Indians" line (since you can find out what actual Illiniwek looked like with a quick trip to the library, if you're interested) get to point to the "hey, it's just private people doing their own thing on their own time, the place I work is not officially taking that line anymore or sponsoring it" when they get ribbed over the Chief at conferences.
So I don't see it as some huge conspiracy to squelch more Chief, really I don't. If anything it should make it clearer that the U has nothing to do with it and so at any event he appears, hey, it's cool. Just don't make more merch.
"The guy two cubes down from me has a huge cling sticker Chief on the window, many people have posters on their doors involving the Chief. Not a problem."
If the Chief is racist, offensive and "hostile and abusive", then why are these symbols allowed to hang in cubicles on University property? or at any work place for that matter? I've attended various diversity training classes at different employers and if I've learned anything it's that employers want to cover their arses in regards to hostile work environments. Heck, a picture of an attractive woman isn't allowed because it may offend female staffers, (it's okay for the women to have pictures of male beefcakes though, for some reason, but I digress). If someone outfitted their cube with nazi symbols, would that also be, "Not a problem"? When's the last time you were able to walk into any book store or clothing shop and purchase a swastika tee shirt? Nationally, private halloween displays were critized this year for resembling lynchings. I'm not taking sides here, but it appears to me that the Chief is offensive in word only. In practice, the image is allowed to be displayed and sold, (for the time being), unlike other "traditional" racist symbols, which leads me to conclude that the symbol is not as offensive as some would like to claim.
In other words, if the guy two cubes down from you made his cube a shrine to Hitler or to the Confederate States of America, would you contact HR? or would you accept it because he is just expressing himself?
I would like to be proven wrong, and have Akibare proven correct, but I'm not so sure. I think that the Daily Illini headline on this today put it best: "U-C Senate postpones discussing Chief resolution; Campus representatives find motives of proposal unclear." I hope that once they figure out what their motives are, they will then be able to agree on their objectives, and then they can pass that information on to us - unless they are being cagey on purpose.
Oh, to think of the days when academia was the great white, male only marketplace of ideas?
At the risk of having this thread careen off into the usual discussion about the leftwing bias in academia / rightwing attack on academia (yeah, it always ends up there anyway), you do get to the meat of the issue - if you strive to have a diversity of races and ethnicities when hiring professors, do you automatically have intellectual diversity, especially if so many of them seem to be singing from the same hymnbook? Maybe it's not the great white male only marketplace of ideas anymore, but you seem to be simply putting labels on people's ideas corresponding to their race: if they are all white, they must be espousing the same idea, and if they are of all races they are all saying very different things. I have yet to see much indication of that.
Viper asks: "In other words, if the guy two cubes down from you made his cube a shrine to Hitler or to the Confederate States of America, would you contact HR? or would you accept it because he is just expressing himself?"
In all honesty? I think the University doesn't want to buy that fight, because they know that the Chief still has a lot of supporters and in many local circles it's politically correct to be pro-Chief. But also in all honesty, they know that the Chief will eventually fade away to a historical note, just as the similar mascots of other schools have. Give it a few rounds of 4-year cycles of students, once a new mascot is in, and it simply will not be an issue. So right now, the smart move is just to stay hands off and wait for the dust to settle. Certainly, for quite some time to come people will bring their old merchandise to games. They did at Stanford. But just as certainly, the new incoming people didn't really pay them much mind - as long as it's not a University sponsored thing, it's just some fans using their right to free speech, and that's it.
If someone came to work with a swastika shirt (which are easy enough to obtain online), I'm not so sure that'd be a clear "can't have it" case either, quite frankly. Intent goes a long way, and they'd argue it at length. Most likely I'd assume he was attention whoring[1], and give him grief over it person to person before I'd go to HR. If the guy started seeming scary about it or expressing current racist sentiments, then yeah, probably I'd report him, if it starts impacting the atmosphere of the office. Still, that's rather historical. More likely, if the guy came to work wearing all sorts of blatantly misogynistic or current racist t-shirts (also easily purchasable online) I'd say something, because that would start impacting the atmosphere of the group sooner.
In the United States you are perfectly free to sell swastika t-shirts. You can buy t-shirts with the oh-so-witty joke about punching your wife in the eye twice. People complained about the Halloween party, but it was a private party, so there were no sanctions. Surely if I were to wear swastika memorabilia while representing the University (note: that's a different thing than merely wearing it to work) the U, as my employer, would no doubt have some words about it.
Criticism is not the same thing as censorship. The Halloween parties were criticized. If you can't take the heat, don't wear the costume.
Meanwhile I see FAR more calendars skirting the edge of salaciousness that feature scantily clad women than I do the reverse.
[1] Given that it's the height of rebellious cool these days in quite a few circles to wear swastikas and then make a huge show of being offended when someone ELSE is offended at seeing it, claiming that "oh you're so ignorant, don't you know I'm reclaiming an ancient buddhist symbol??", or more broadly, wearing any vaguely disturbing "non-PC" slogan item and again, feigning obtuseness and outrage when someone calls you on it, so that you can give the lecture about how open-minded you are, what a fan of free speech you are, and how awful the "PC" bogeyman is, of course.
akibare,
Interesting point of view. The academic world sounds to be a lot more lenient than the corporate environments I've experienced. Any of the examples you gave above would have initiated action by management to remove the questionable material and re-program the offender. Maybe corporations are more concerned about sexual harassment and descrimination lawsuits?
In regards to the halloween reference, I didn't make myself clear. I was not referring to the student party which was held locally, but rather a report I saw on CNN on halloween night. CNN had several live reports around the country where a house or small business was decorated for halloween which included a dummy hanging from a noose. The displays were protested because they were accused of portraying a lynching, which, if true, would understandably, at the very least, be controversial, if not offensive. I guess it all lies in the eyes of the beholder. Those who put up the decorations swore they weren't promoting lynching, but it was part of the halloween theme, (i.e. caskets, witches, graves). Some observers were offended and demaned the displays come down.
I realize anything can be bought online, that is why I used the local brick and mortar store as an example. If you walk into Gameday Sports, the store is almost wall to wall of Chief merchandise. My point was if there was a store which carried as much nazi merchandise as Gameday has Chief merchandise, I would bet there would be protests and calls for boycotts because of the offensive material. My observation though is just the opposite in regards to Chief merchandise, which has been declared racist, offensive, etc. Just because there is a limited time on the sale of the merchandise shouldn't make it any less offensive. I would expect those who are morally offended to work to limit or prevent anyone profiting from what they consider a morally racist and offensive image, but as I stated before, I haven't observed such actions which match the words.
So much for the supposed hyper-leftist censorship in academia, I guess :) Seriously though, in order for any sort of action to be taken, someone has to first complain. This has been true of every place I've worked, for the state and in private industry.
You do realize that plenty of people do boycott Gameday Sports as well as places like Follett's because they sell Chiefwear, right? People have been vocally protesting the Chief for years, and been met with the "oh you're a buncha whiny malcontents." All of a sudden it's a duty they're not doing, when the general meme for the past 10 (at least) years has been "why are those anti-Chief people such a nuisance?" The powers that be may have never listened, but it wasn't for lack of people yelling about it.
Fact is that in this town, more people like the Chief than not (and more importantly, the movers and shakers are pro-Chief), in that sense it is very politically correct to be pro-Chief. So, there aren't huge calls to shut down the Gameday, and if there were, Gameday would just laugh, because they are making plenty of money from the fans. Those who boycott just say, quietly, fine, at least they're not getting MY money. Those who find it racist, find it racist. Personally, I find it anachronistic and more than a bit embarrassing, particularly when the line changed from "well, he's our mascot and has all the best traits of your standard Boy Scout Indian[1] and we love him so who cares what you think" to one of "oh, but he's educational about the people who lived here before us, if we don't have the Chief no one will know about real Indians, plus he doesn't go to supermarket openings anymore." The former is insensitive perhaps, but the latter makes us all look ignorant.
But more than the logo it's the disturbing statements some (certainly not all, but a few loud people) make when someone does say he's not a Chief fan, and heaven forbid the complainer happens to be Indian himself or from an area where they are a large population, then sometimes you get the stereotypes pouring out, about the casinos and you're all a bunch of drunks or whatever and how dare you not like it, we're honoring your people because obviously they were far more noble in the past? The entire issue, alas, provides a focus point for those conflicts to occasionally happen, often after a few beers.
Currently the U is in a great position, they have "caved" to the NCAA and gotten themselves out of being in the Chief biz, but with the handy excuse of "The Man made me do it." The smart move for them, I think, is to leave it at that, do the minimum, which they've done, and which they KNOW is sufficient to cause the issue to eventually blow over, all without them having to have made a stand, or told off prominent people they'd rather not confront. It's like when you're a kid who doesn't want to cave to peer pressure and you've got the handy "I can't, my mom will kill me" excuse. THAT is the light I see this decision being made in (we'll see, I might be wrong). Put the entire remainder usage in the private unregulated unsupported area, allow maximum free speech, no one can claim censorship, and just ignore it.
I agree that if somehow this works out to mean that there's no money or way to have Homecoming at all, it would be a problem. But I don't think anyone wants that.
As for the Halloween nooses, I didn't hear those things on CNN, but I think it must have been influenced quite a bit by the timing around the Jena 6 news stories. Certainly every year there are nooses around Halloween and this is the first I've come across people thinking of lychings, in the absence of other clues. (More common are the horrible stories every so often of kids putting on Halloween scares, messing up, and actually hanging themselves - check Snopes.) People certainly made hanging jokes around the execution of Saddam Hussein and no one complained about that. Mostly on Halloween I see them with scarecrows in them, but done up to look like suicides.
[1] Boy Scout Indian, conception of all what is supposedly noble about Indians (and thereby the American spirit), think chants and camping (50's summer camp in the woods, color war, etc), crafts, nature lore, boys learning to be men, etc, usually Plains motifs, meant well, high emphasis on honor, but - a good caricature sincerely loved with only the absolute best of intentions is still a caricature. Plenty of people HATE the "Dances with Wolves" style all-knowing communing with nature kumbaya caricature every bit as much as they hated the "bloodthirsty scalpers" caricature, because neither of those images are reflecting real people with all their variations. Anyway, the book "Playing Indian" by Philip DeLoria has a chapter on the Boy Scouts (doesn't mention the Chief at all, don't worry) which is actually quite educational. The book in total talks about the role of Indian imagery in the US from the founding days to the present, it's a pretty good read.