Two young men at Southern Oregon University got a pretty sympathetic piece in the Mail Tribune today for scribbling anti-gay graffiti on the walls of a gender-neutral dorm. They totally don’t hate gay people, though, they were just, uh, bored (?)
“We already had markers in our hands and we started to draw stuff on the walls, and it escalated,” Adkins said.
“We’re good people, we just made a mistake,” Adkins added. “It was a reckless act. It wasn’t supposed to be a hate crime or anything like that. It was a poor choice of words.”
“By no means are we homophobic,” Adkins said. “Unfortunately we managed to hit some halls that had special floors and that was an unintentional and unknowing mistake.” Adkins and Novotny were arrested on April 30 and charged with second-degree criminal mischief. An intimidation charge against Adkins was dropped. They pleaded guilty on May 19 to the violation and received a $400 fine, they said. They could have received up to a $720 fine, Adkins said.
The students wrote “slang words with sexual and homophobic connotations” next to the names of residents in the gender-neutral dorm.
It remains to be seen whether the boys will be found responsible for violating college conduct policies.
This reminds me of something I covered as a student at Lewis & Clark College—a student there made racially offensive posters that intimidated students and caused a ruckus when they were found. That student was found responsible for hate & bias by the college, a charge that was eventually overturned when the college president got involved and pressure was on.
The LC student, unlike these boys at SOU, was trying to make social commentary, not just wander around at night with a marker. But they both raise complicated issues with free speech and hate speech, in residential and academic environments… It’s just so durn complicated.
Oh yeah, and are you guys super excited for the “God Hates Fags” people to get here?
Hurray for my alma mater? :-/
At least you have a gender-neutral dorm, that’s pretty cool.
What did they write?
The fact that people write moronic graffiti in bathrooms is somehow a huge issue tells me these people lead very sheltered lives.
Some college kids (emphasis on “kids”) are really confused about free speech. In your own time & your own place (like your house or blog that no one reads), you can say whatever you want.
But if stupid remarks get in the way of other people’s right to an education or makes people feel harassed where they, ya know, sleep? You have the Right to Shut Up or Get the Fuck Out. Class Dismissed.
Did they write anything worse than what Dan Savage would write? That’s the litmus test that should be used. Because Dan Savage is a respectable newspaperman.
@ Graham:
do you mean “what Dan Savage would write” anonymously, in marker, outside the door of someone’s residence? I’m not sure he does that sort of thing.
@Angela Dan Savage has a well known history of that type of ass-hattery. There’s the well known example of Dan Savage conducting attempted germ warfare based on ideological principles in 2000.
Also, what did they write? Was it just them scrawling, “lol gay” next to people’s names? Or was it actual hurtful junk?
From the Ashland paper:
“The graffiti consisted of slang words with sexual and homophobic connotations written next to some of the names of the residents.
Adkins and Novotny said they didn’t know any of the people they wrote about, and that they got the names from signs on the dorm doors.”
@Night Moves – I don’t think that’s what the First Amendment covers. Maybe you’re talking about some other law.
Historical Footnote:
The Jonathan Eldridge (SOU VP f/ Student Affairs) quoted by the Mail Tribune is the Jon Eldridge who was instrumental in convincing the Lewis & Clark College Board of Trustees to authorize a sex-blind housing option during his tenure as Dean of Students there, and was involved in resolving a number of Lewis & Clark is-it-student-speech-or-is-it-harassment issues.
If people “aren’t homophobic” I wish they’d stop doing impressions of people who were. Maybe straight men can begin flashing their iPods around to total strangers and saying, “see dude I’m totally not Amish, really.”
Oh and quit giving F-. P-. and his crazy fat family attention and publicizing his website. He is clearly a gay man in disguise making homophobes look like the fools they are. Him and that skank A-. C-. strive for attention and we libs give it to them every time.