To the Editor:
For all of the traditional reasons, we at Oberlin College will celebrate Thanksgiving Day next week, and we have even more reasons for which to be thankful this year then in previous years, if only because the structural deficit challenges have been at least temporarily addressed successfully.
An additional reason our community may all rejoice is due to the college's unambiguous and enthusiastic support of everyone's First Amendment Rights; the General Faculty unanimously expressed, in the strongest language possible, its whole hearted endorsement of the principles of free speech several years ago. And support for those precious principles has never been more universally and warmly cherished than today.
Surely, there was some confusion about these rights following statements by President Dye and others condemning certain behaviors of a group brought to campus about two weeks ago. Most Oberlinians did not feel that the President's expressions in any way threatened the survivability of free speech. We saw her acting much as she did last spring when she wrote two letters to the campus condemning with vehemence certain statements by Kwame Ture; the president took action to protect the long-range interests of Oberlin College.
Some in the black community took exception to President Dye's stance then; it is understandable that some students and faculty feel her remarks about the performance on campus recently may undermine our rights to freedom of expression. As there was no sure way of assuaging the concerns some blacks had that the President's letters were a form of censorship of Kwame Ture's talk, there is no way of allaying concerns of those now worried about her comments pertaining to the Tribe 8 band's performance.
As a very progressive College and the marketplace of ideas, viewpoints, etc., Oberlin is doing precisely what it should do, namely, discuss, argue, debate all the pros and cons of this current issue just as fervently as it did the Ture visit. Because everyone at Oberlin values jealously the right to freedom of expression, we are free to try to influence others' ideas and behaviors, free to try to discourage the President from saying anything negative about Ture or about the Tribe 8 performance.
But the President is equally free to try to protect the long-range interests of the College and, indeed, she has a definite responsibility to so act with vigor. Of course, we expect her subordinates to feel secure as they perform their jobs in a professional manner. To date, the President has shown herself to be courageously vigilant about the College's best interests, regardless of whether we all agreed with her, eager to debate the issues, and sensitive to those employees under her. Nowhere is the freedom of expression more protected than here at Oberlin. Let's all be thankful.
Copyright © 1996, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 125, Number 10; November 22, 1996
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