February 20, 2005

"Anti-illegal immigrant column stirs up college"

*Sigh* If you've visited this blog before, you probably know the drill. If you're a newbie, keep reading.

So, anyway, here's a scan of the "controversial" essay, which was printed in a San Diego-area college newspaper. (Another scan is here.)

The SDUT's story on this is "Anti-illegal immigrant column stirs up college", also discussed here.

While there are a few problems with the essay, especially the part about the leeches, almost every American citizen would consider it well within the bounds of polite discourse. Despite that, one can imagine how this all played out. The race pimps didn't just whine:

[...someone saw] MEChA members crying and angrily denouncing the piece as they read it. MEChA called for a meeting with both the Sun staff and the college administration.

"We made it clear at that meeting that it was an individual opinion," said Sun faculty adviser Max Branscomb. "It was on the Viewpoints page, and it did not come close to reflecting the point of view of the staff as a whole..."

Robin McCubbin, a faculty adviser for Students For Community Action, attended the meeting. He later wrote in a statement to the college's faculty that the piece was "a racist attack and call for violence (How else should the recommendation of the application of fire to the body of a living organism be characterized?)."

In an interview, McCubbin said, "Even if it's legal, is there any justification for it appearing in a newspaper for our campus?"

But MEChA faculty adviser Margarita Andrade-Robledo was won over by Branscomb's defense of freedom of the press.

"I don't like the article, but the First Amendment gives them that right" to publish it, she concluded.

Because Andrade-Robledo would not support the club in continuing to call for a retraction and an apology, the MEChA board ousted her as adviser...

(Please note the link to discoverthenetwork.com. If you're a blogger or similar, I suggest you link to such organizations using a similar construct so that they can be easily found by those searching with google. Here's an alternate link for that organization. Or, use this.)

Posted to Immigration2005a at February 20, 2005 08:57 PM

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