(NAME-MCE) Pacifica Forum draws campus protest

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Pacifica Forum draws campus protest | UO officials are re-evaluating their
policy of allowing free use of buildings by noncampus organizations

By Mark Baker and Greg Bolt  The Register-Guard  Eugene OR  January 9, 2010

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms/sites/web/news/cityregion/24334073-57/forum-pacifica-campus-talk-group.csp

The young woman, a University of Oregon student who would only give her name
as Katie, couldn’t take it anymore. She had to come forward, had to say
something. To his face.

“This is not acceptable!” she said more than once to Valdas Anelauskas,
tears streaming down her face. “You’re making me feel unsafe.”

She came all the way from the back of the room, the Walnut Room at the UO’s
Erb Memorial Union, Friday during the latest Pacifica Forum talk.

She said she had to tell Anelauska­s, a Lithuanian native who has described
himself as a “white separatist and racialist,” just what she thought of a
remark he admits to making during a talk last summer about the late radical
feminist and writer, Andrea Dworkin.

Anelauskas had said Dworkin, known for her views that pornography can lead
to violence against women, was “too ugly to rape.”

The young woman was joined by several others in Friday’s crowd, most who
came to protest the Pacifica Forum, and huddled with her to support her
after Anelauskas tried to comfort her by saying, “No, you’re not ugly.”

The exchange, by far the most intense among many heated moments during the
discussion and profanity-laced protest that came with it, occurred about an
hour into the 90-minute session titled, “Everything You Wanted to Know About
Pacifica Forum But Were Afraid to Ask.”

The confrontation is the latest chapter involving the controversial group
that has UO officials examining its policy over free meeting space for
noncampus organizations. The Pacifica Forum has been allowed to gather on
campus because its founder, 94-year-old Orval Etter, is a retired UO public
policy professor.

Friday’s protest was organized after opponents were riled by a Dec. 11
Pacifica Forum talk by Springfield resident Jimmy Marr, in which Marr is
said to have given the Nazi salute, “Sieg heil!” Dressed in full Scottish
regalia on Friday, Marr mockingly stood and gave the salute over and over to
protesters.

At least half of the 75 in attendance Friday were there to protest the
Pacifica Forum, named as one of 926 American “hate groups” last year by the
Southern Poverty Law Center. The protesters held signs that said, “Pacifica
Forum — Nazi Dupes,” “No Platform for Fascism” and “Hate Speech is not Free
Speech.”

After witnessing the female student’s tears and anger, UO student body
president Emma Kallaway asked the Pacifica Forum members to leave the EMU.

“I want our women to feel safe,” Kallaway said. “I don’t want you here.”

Kallaway said the EMU is home to several diverse students group such as the
UO’s Black Student Union, Jewish Student Union and the school’s Lesbian,
Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer group. Kallaway said she has received
lots of complaints about Pacifica Forum talks and has approached UO
President Richard Lariviere’s office about getting them moved to another
building or off campus completely.

“It’s not appropriate for them to be in this building,” Kallaway said.

Anelauskas and another group member, Billy Rojas, who led the meeting,
reiterated several times during Friday’s meeting that Pacifica Forum is a
“free speech group” that has nothing to do with neo-Nazism.

Anelauskas, who said his daughter attends the UO, said a university is a
place for the “free exchange of ideas,” regardless of whether one finds them
offensive.

As a result of the uproar over Marr’s talk, UO administrators are
reassessing the policy that allows retired professors to book space for
public events.

Speakers at Pacifica Forum events address a range of topics, from
environmental issues to politics. But in addition to Marr, whose talk was
affiliated with the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement and titled “An
insider’s view of America’s radical right,” the group also has invited
controversial speakers such as Mark Weber and David Long, who question
aspects of the Holocaust.

Charles Martinez, the UO’s vice president for institutional equity and
diversity, said it’s time the UO revisited its policy. He said it’s not
clear whether the privilege is required by a formal policy or simply an
unwritten tradition.

Any decision that denied the group space on campus would raise thorny free
speech issues, but Martinez said it’s important to have policies that
reflect the university’s mission. He said the UO can’t deny campus space to
any group based on viewpoint and said people shouldn’t think the university
agrees with everything said on campus just because speakers are allowed to
say them.

And Martinez says he does believe the UO can block access in cases where
speech could result in violence, a line he thinks the Pacifica Forum crossed
in its Dec. 11 meeting, which Martinez attended.

“Could the ideas, images presented there do that? Yes,” he said. “And the
potential risk is not just to the individuals and groups who may be the
source of the content, it may also be to the people making the
presentation.”

But that view is disputed by those who support the group’s access to UO
facilities. George Beres, a retired UO sports information director and past
Pacifica Forum member, said the group doesn’t incite violence any more than
sports columnists writing about the rival Oregon State Beavers.

“I think it has no credence,” he said of Martinez’ argument. “The threat it
has for freedom of expression, that is far more serious than the concern of
fomenting violence.”