Civil Rights Group To Bowdoin Dean: Stop Bullying Students Who Disagree With You

BRUNSWICK, Maine - Dec. 17, 2014 - PRLog -- NEW YORK, NEW YORK, December 16, 2014....In wake of threats from Bowdoin College's Dean of Students to punish Bowdoin students who dressed up during the Thanksgiving season as Native Americans--an activity the dean decried as "offensive cultural appropriation"--the New York Civil Rights Coalition has called on Bowdoin officials to stop bullying Bowdoin students who think differently than how Bowdoin officialdom demands. In his public letter to Dean of Students Tim Foster, e-mailed to Foster late afternoon this past Monday, the New York Civil Rights Coalition's executive director, Michael Meyers, told Dean Foster that Bowdoin students "should be entitled to, and protected, when it comes to their lawful free expression and association activities," and "free, as well, to openly question your orthodoxy and assumptions and pretensions about what constitutes 'cultural appropriation' or what is and is not 'culturally-sensitive'"

Meyers, who is African American, assailed the rhetoric of censorship from the Bowdoin Dean of Students; he asked in his letter if students, including blacks, who, for example, were to mock or else dress up in African garb, such as dashikis, could also be accused of "cultural appropriation." Free speech oftentimes involves and includes, he wrote, "satire and mockery" as well as "earnest disagreement" with official viewpoints.

The open letter from the civil rights group also questioned whether the dean's promise of punishment skirted proper due process. Meyers scoffed at the notion and appearance that the dean making such threats and assurances of punishment could be "both accuser and disciplinarian." The civil rights group's view is the dean cannot be accuser and the trier of fact; indeed, Meyers wanted to know if anyone--other than college officials---had stepped forward as complainants, as being "offended" by the students who had dressed up as Native Americans at their off-campus Thanksgiving-time party, not that Meyers regarded mere "offense" as a violation of anybody's rights. Meyers urged Bowdoin's dean to "rethink your punitive scheme--and to reach for education" instead of indoctrination.

Excerpts from Meyers' open letter to Dean Foster follow. For more information about this release or for comment on this issue, contact Michael Meyers at 212-563-5636.

"Dear Dean Foster:

Press reports have called our attention to Bowdoin officials’ response to the off-campus party at the off campus...where Bowdoin students...dressed up, around Thanksgiving time, as Pilgrims and Native Americans....Bowdoin...is threatening or has already ‘disciplined” students who...committed “cultural appropriation” by dressing up in Native American...attire....Indeed, you expressed your disgust that some Bowdoin students decided to go ahead with their [annual] off-campus observance of...Thanksgiving—dressed as Native Americans...even after Bowdoin’s educational programming...as to how “cultural appropriation” is a no-no at Bowdoin College. To quote you, the party’s hosts....were the more offensive and outrageous because they “chose to willfully ignore the message” of cultural-sensitivity with respect to dress and costumes....From the perspective of civil rights, due process, and free speech and association...your position is absurd—and your threat to punish “offensive” students outrageous and idiotic...

I thought of Bowdoin as a truly liberal arts college that believed in diversity—including diversity of viewpoint—and in freedom of conscience—meaning allowing students to learn, and to act on their beliefs, free of threat or imposition of others’ ideas as to either political correctness or “cultural sensitivity.”...

... While a private college, Bowdoin purports to believe in freedom of ideas, freedom of inquiry, freedom of association, and freedom of conscience.  I say this not because your Students’ Handbook guarantees these fundamental rights and interests of students, but because such freedoms are inherent to the broadening of students’ horizons, to testing assumptions, to the mission of extirpating prejudices and base stereotypes, and to contesting group think...

When does plain and candid...speech...not constitute offense to someone? The very...observation of Thanksgiving as an occasion—is offensive to somebody....Who gave you the right to be the arbiter of good taste? To censor ideas? ...What kind of educational institution are you running there?

Where and when does the search for truth become in your view endangered by some constituency’s objections to a historical analysis or criticism? Appropriation is delusional; it is certainly not unique to Native Americans or to any other identity or minority or majority group on your campus. Which group’s viewpoint of history has more cache with you? More validity? Is it because your faculty and the Native American Student Association’s viewpoint about “culturally-sensitive” costumes was ignored—or mocked—the very reason you have taken such strong exception to the students who dressed “inappropriately”? Are the students who have apologized to you—now recognizing that their dress was “hurtful”—genuinely remorseful or have they caved to your bullying tactics? Are they in effect...acquiescing to your demand for conformity of thought and conscience?

I also regard as absurd your taking exception to “anonymous” comments posted online about the college’s position on this controversy. You call such comments “cowardly.”  I expect that students feel intimidated because of the censorious pressures and officious threatening of them from college officials whenever the students are not expressing viewpoints that agree with yours. That’s not “cowardly”—that’s caution....

You are...shutting down debate and cutting off discussion in the guise of promoting cultural sensitivity...

[Re]...the disciplinary procedures of Bowdoin College...Is it fair or proper procedure for the college’s dean of students to prefer charges against “offensive” students even as ...[you] condemn the accused and predetermine their discipline? What kind of due process other than a kangaroo procedure is that?...You may not be both accuser and disciplinarian...{Whether] satire, mockery, [or] earnest disagreement—[students must have] wide berth [in]...free expression....

I urge you to rethink your punitive scheme—and to reach for education, not punishment..."