The Dartmouth chose recently to be among the many US college newspapers not to run David Horowitz's full page ad entitled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea -- and Racist Too." They ran instead, on March 28th, Rachel Osterman's article, "Ad Sparks Campus Controversy."
Although the article described some of the reasons why "Ten Reasons" has caused such an uproar, it presented the ad in anything but an objective light. In the article's sole sentence about the ad itself, Rachel Osterman writes, "It argues that African-Americans owe the United States more than what the country owes them." Not only is her sentence a debatable interpretation of the ad's final two reasons, but it also implies that this claim was the ad's overall theme when in fact it applies to only two of 10 points.
Osterman ignores the other eight components of Horowitz's argument; in doing so she gives a completely unfair slant on the ad, one that makes all the protests seem well deserved indeed. She never addresses the other reason for the ad's controversy: the fact that some of its points are widely agreed upon (such as the assertion that most white Americans, who are descendants of post-slavery immigrants to the US, should not be held responsible for something in which they've played no part).
This is simply misleading and poor reporting. Many unfamiliar with the ad's full text (or the text of the column from which it was snipped) who read Osterman's article might well dismiss Horowitz as that stereotypical "conservative thinker" who thinly veils ultra-right wing racism/homophobia/classism/etc. in academic and political rhetoric. Forget about the fact that, as Horowitz says in his own self-defense, "I am the architect of a congressional bill to provide $100 billion in scholarships to inner-city minority kids."
I am trying here to defend neither the "Ten Reasons" ad nor the character of its author. What I am trying to defend is accurate, objective reporting. Osterman's article presented much too simple a portrait of this ad, and the unfortunate result of such an oversight could be many people's dismissals of the ad as racist and ignorant, when in fact it raises many complicated and delicate issues that are the very things that college students should be discussing in and outside of class.
Which brings me to my other point: The D really wimped out by not running the ad in the first place. Omer Ismail, President of The Dartmouth, explained: "We chose not to run the ad because of its potentially inflammatory and offensive nature." In reply, I quote Ismail's counterpart at the Duke Chronicle, Greg Pessin: "But the free exchange of ideas should not be sacrificed for comfort." I wholeheartedly agree with Pessin, and feel quite let down that Ismail and his colleagues chose to avoid raising vital issues -- slavery reparations and, moreover, US race relations -- because of their controversial nature. Aren't students at one of the finest colleges in the nation supposed to embrace these debates and free exchanges of ideas? Are we so afraid of stepping on people's politically correct toes that we're just going to skirt hot issues?
Some readers might think in reply that a newspaper ad is just not the forum to project any of these ideas. In Osterman's article, Leah Threatte said: "I believe in free speech, but student newspapers should be voices for students, not for private corporations and rich individuals." While I share her sentiment, the fact is that any newspaper that accepts money for ads is already playing that game -- whether it takes cash from Horowitz or the Princeton Review. Besides, who the hell wants to see a Princeton Review ad when you might read something that makes you think? I wish The Dartmouth could have followed in Duke and Brown's footsteps in their support of free speech.
There is one last reason for which The Dartmouth should have run Horowitz's ad: they left it for the Dartmouth Review to pick up. Perfect. Nothing against the Review, but given its reputation and history with minority groups on campus, it's not exactly the best vehicle to run an ad that's already been widely deemed racist "controversial" etc. Now, instead of the Dartmouth community receiving this information from an objective source, it has been served the ad in a manner which might widely be perceived as somehow tainted. And that's a shame.
But then again, at least the Review was able to do what The Dartmouth could not: have some guts and risk a little controversy in order to further the chance of valuable discourse on this campus -- something we could undoubtedly use.