Treasurer Summers Met with Protest, Catcalls

Cry for Freedom: Eve Goodman and Erika Blechinger protesting Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers' visit to Oberlin to speak about the challenges of the New Economy. (photo by Areca Treon)

"We're the Larry Summers Welcoming Committee," announced sophomore Eve Goodman, in front of a crowd of thirty-odd protesters in front of Finney Chapel. Lawrence Summers, Secretary of Treasury, was in Oberlin to present a speech entitled "Economic Challenges and Priorities in the New Economy."

The protesters objected to Summers' policy choices that favor a world market and a global economy. Summers was previously the Chief Economist of the World Bank, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury and a professor at Harvard University.

"Oberlin is devoted to free and open discourse," Acting President Clayton Koppes said to the audience in Finney Chapel during his introductory remarks.

The inside of Finney Chapel was packed with students, faculty and Oberlin residents. After opening remarks by Koppes, Secretary Summers took the podium to strong applause, scattered booing and the unfurling from the back balcony of a large flag with the words "WHO$E PRO$PERITY" painted across it.

"I'm, uh, glad to be here," Summers said, in perhaps the only portion of his speech not obscured by the protestors' clamor. His remarks mainly addressed the necessity of a global economy. "No country has achieved significant and lasting reductions in poverty without rapid economic growth. No country has grown rapidly in the past 50 years without substantial growth in exports, supported by integration with the global economy and a move to accept the norms of the global marketplace," Summers said in the speech.

"We're here to protest globalization and neoliberalism, and Larry Summers is the figurehead of that system," Goodman said. Before the speech, protesters held signs, offered those going into Finney Chapel noisemakers and shouted slogans such as, "Third World genocide, Larry Summers you can't hide!"

Midway through Summers' speech, in the midst of the protestors' disruptions, Professor of theater Roger Copeland stood up in the audience and addressed the podium. "I call upon Clayton Koppes to enforce your policy, not sit there spinelessly," he said. "These protesters should be removed."

Summers continued the speech, acknowledging some of the problems of globalization, "But to say that globalization is the right way forward, and that the higher morality is on the side of giving people alternatives rather than stopping them from having those alternatives - to say all this is not to say that unfettered globalization is the best way forward."

However, most people attending the speech in all likelihood could not perceive Summers making those statements - or discern much of his speech at all. Summers' presentation rapidly turned into a confrontation between those who wanted to hear what Summers had to say, and the minority of protesters who kept up a constant disruption.

Koppes said, "It was an honor and a rare opportunity to be able to have someone of the world prominence of Lawrence Summers on our campus...I think catcalls, tooting on kazoos and tactics like that have no place in an academic community. We support protest but under appropriate conditions. And the actions of a small group of protestors intruded on the Secretary's right to speak and intruded on the rights of the vast bulk of the community who wanted to hear him."

Dean of Students Peter Goldsmith said, "I expect that there were those who felt that free speech was in jeopardy at Oberlin at noon on Monday. I think in the end, free speech prevailed on Monday, but it was surely jeopardized."

"We can do this a couple different ways," Summers said near the beginning of his speech. "We'll all have a chance for a dialogue if I'm allowed to finish my remarks." Goodman began the protest as soon as Summers began to speak, standing up and shouting a politicized pledge of allegiance, quoted from Utah Phillips.

During the remainder of Summers' remarks, protesters shouted comments, unfurled more banners and blew on noisemakers despite frequent requests from other audience members to stop. "I couldn't believe the amount of noise in there," junior Josephine Lukoma said later.

When the question and answer period began, another protester began reading a prepared statement into the microphone. Koppes then asked the student to either ask a question or cease reading the statement.

One of the protestors expressed anger that Koppes had assured the protestors that they would be allowed to read their statement. Koppes said, "I had received assurances that Secretary Summers would be received with respect and I'm saddened that those promises were not kept. The format was always that in the question-and-answer period questions should be posed that were succinct and to the point."

In the final question of the day, first-year Shahana Siddiqui ended by telling the audience, "Being from a third world country and being adamantly against globalization, if I could sit here quietly for his speech, I don't see why all of you could not."

Reactions after the speech were mixed. Koppes said, "This was more intense than the College or [Summers'] office anticipated."

Protesters expressed satisfaction with how things had gone, and their frustration at being denied an opportunity to state their full opinion. "Just asking questions isn't an equal power dynamic," senior Laurel Paget-Seekins said. However, most students and faculty expressed regret over the occurrences during Summers' speech.

After the protest, Copeland said, "It's not the idea of disruptive protest per se that bothered me, but rather one, the specific nature of the protest: I believe it's fundamentally immoral to attempt to drown out public speech and two, the failure of College administrators to enforce the College's own clearly articulated policy with regard to freedom of speech."

At the General Faculty meeting held earlier this week, Koppes asked for opinions about the protest. Some even called for students responsible to be brought to Judicial Board. "At least a couple of professors expressed the opinion that steps should be taken and other opinions were expressed in opposition," Koppes said.

Section IX of the Rules and Regulations states that, "We as a community encourage and protect free inquiry and the open exchange of facts, ideas and opinions." Later the Rules and Regs says, regarding guest speakers, "The College may develop procedures for orderly scheduling and presentation of speakers and other programs." It also provides in an explanation of the judicial system at Oberlin College that, "Oberlin forbids conduct which interferes with, impinges upon, or otherwise disrupts any legitimate function of the College."

Goldsmith said that the administration has been considering a forum in the future for students to discuss their feelings about the event and freedom of speech in general. "We had in mind a forum for students to talk among themselves with the help of their professors, and to think about how you come to some balance between the rights of protesters to be heard and the rights of individuals in an academic setting to hear the event that they'd come to hear."

Yet some feel that a forum is not a powerful enough antidote to Monday's events. "For the first time, I'm embarrassed to be a student at Oberlin," one student said on the condition of anonymity. Professor of economics Hirschel Kasper said that bringing Summers to Oberlin represents the culmination of several events over the past decade.

"A lot of people tried to get him here," Kasper said. "His chief of staff is an Oberlin grad. He came because a long time ago, he was supposed to give an honors exam. I felt personally involved; I felt bad for him. The school was being embarrassed, and I was being hurt as well. If it had been me, I would never do this again."

"I thought things went relatively well considering that so many people had strong feelings about it. The College was trying to follow their own policy to observe free speech as much as possible," Marjorie Burton, the assistant director of Safety and Security, said.

Students mainly expressed disagreement not with the protesters' message, but with the manner in which they communicated it. Lukoma commented "They [the protesters] had a valid reason for being there, but there is a better way they could have protested. It comes down to basic respect. They decided for us to censor what he had to say."

Koppes, though, managed to view the event in a positive light. "I think this was positive in the sense that the College community was able to hear a speaker on this controversial issue, even though tactics were used in the protest that were inappropriate." Koppes also said, "We've had much worse [protests] here."

For his part, Copeland professed a more worrisome view of the future. "My fear is that the college administration is so adverse to controversy of any sort that we'll simply stop inviting speakers to campus who might prove the least bit provocative.," he said. When was the last time that someone really controversial spoke on this campus? We don't believe in freedom of speech, we believe in freedom from speech. And this makes an absolute travesty of the traditional meaning of a liberal arts education," he said.