Brown University students pack forum on newspaper ad controversy

By The Associated Press

03.24.01

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Brown University students packed a campus auditorium for an evening panel discussion March 21 on the controversy over a newspaper advertisement denouncing slavery reparations for blacks.

The forum was intended to foster a dialogue that would help the campus move past the hard feelings that have marked the past week. The discussion centered on the First Amendment rights of the media, and community's sensitivity to racial and cultural issues.

A group of students calling themselves the Coalition of Concerned Brown Students stole 4,000 copies of the Brown Daily Herald on March 16 in protest of the ad by conservative activist David Horowitz that was published in an earlier edition.

Professors from the university's political science, English and African-American studies departments participated in the forum, which drew more than 500 students to Alumni Hall but was closed to the news media.

Tracy Breton, a visiting professor of English at Brown and a staff writer at The Providence Journal, was slated to sit on the panel but bowed out after learning that the press would be excluded.

"I feel it would be hypocritical for me to be ... talking about freedom of the press when my colleagues are standing outside in the rain," Breton said in a statement that was read at the beginning of the forum.

During the forum, members of the coalition held a press conference to reiterate their anger over the Horowitz ad. The protesters said the newspaper has sparked racial tensions on campus.

"Never before at Brown have I felt such animosity," said Brian Lee, a senior who spoke at the press conference.

Another student said the Herald should have been shut out of the forum with the rest of the media. Members of the group defended their theft of the papers as a legitimate act of civil disobedience, and rejected charges their actions amounted to censorship.

The Herald's editors have successfully distributed four editions of the paper since the theft of the March 16 press run. Members of the coalition have handed out fliers on campus denouncing the newspaper for taking Horowitz's $725 to publish the ad.

But the Herald's editors have refused to apologize for what they say is the paper's right to free expression.

The panelists in the March 21 forum fell on both sides of the argument. Their comments drew frequent cheers from the audience.

Meanwhile, at Duke University in Durham, N.C., the school's Chronicle Online reported that about 15 students entered the Chronicle office on March 22 to protest the newspaper's publication of the ad, called "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea and Racist Too."

The students were evicted from the newsroom by campus police, the newspaper's Web site said. They had taken the action after "hours of impassioned debate" on campus.

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