RECENT events at the University have me very afraid. There are those that say that I am an example of a systemic problem: a person whose politics and philosophy prevent social advancement in ignorant defiance of justice and fairness. I am not such a person, and neither is anyone else that has been grouped together with the shadowy perpetrator of recent racial incidents at U.Va. We have a problem at U.Va., but it isn't the one which is continually driven into the realm of public discourse by vocal student activists. Rather, the problem lies in the activism itself, an activism which purports to be tied to common values, but in reality is tied to a radical political ideology of the most harmful kind.
This is most apparent in the wake of the recent racial incident involving Amey Adkins. At this point, all we know is that someone wrote a racial epithet across the hood of Adkins' car with a sticky substance. Beyond this, we know no specifics of the crime. Therefore, given the facts at hand, there are four possible conclusions that can be drawn. Somebody outside of the U.Va. community perpetrated the crime, someone within the U.Va. community committed the crime, a U.Va. community member committed the crime and serves as an example of a larger pandemic of latent racism among the U.Va. community, or, the activists themselves created the vandalism in order to bring notice to their cause.
Student activists have pointed toward the third conclusion: that the act is indicative of a "climate of hate," which is quite a stretch from the evidence at hand.
Adkins has shown a desire to give evidence to the "climate of hate" conclusion by stating in her Cavalier Daily column of Sept. 17 that "[t]his incident at the start of the school year could have easily been capitalized for its educational potential and used as a stepping stone for unity and awareness." From this evidence there is but one conclusion: that some activists, while justifiably angered by a senseless act of petty vandalism, are all too ready to use this event to further their cause.
And use it they shall.
Recently, the BSA has proposed amending the beloved U.Va. honor code to include "acts of hate" as well as "acts of egregious ignorance" as punishable honor offenses, and by conjunction threatening anyone with expulsion whose actions exemplify these vague and overly broad characteristics. That not one part of the wording of this proposal attempts to concretely define what these terms mean is a gross affront to hundreds of years of Western legal precedent, which demands that standards of a crime be clear and concise from within the law itself, and not from those that may interpret it. Additionally, the threat that these overly broad and vague terms pose to our free speech rights is enormous.
What exactly constitutes an "ignorant act?" If I state my opposition to affirmative action, is this an "ignorant act?" If I proclaim in a class that homosexuality is a sin, is this an "ignorant act?" If I argue that "diversity" is nothing more than an intellectually fraudulent way of justifying government entitlement programs, is this an "ignorant act?" It would seem that to the activists behind the amendment and those that may very well interpret the proposed amended honor code, these protected acts of political speech, as well as a plethora of other forms of protected speech -- political or otherwise -- would be defined as an "ignorant act."
It is also important to note, as the other side no doubt will, that this is all in the preliminary stages -- that no official text has been adopted for the proposed amendment. This is largely irrelevant, as anything codified against the broad concepts brought forth in the proposal would have the direct impact of immediately silencing dissent. So, it may very well be the case that no one will ever be punished under any such vague amendment, because everyone will decide it better to shut up rather than speak their mind and risk expulsion.
The political debate that we will all be a part of in the coming weeks and months over this issue is probably one of the most important ones that we will have over the course of our entire lives. Even though I will be graduating in May and the outcome will not directly affect me, I still feel an affinity toward free speech for the students of the University of Virginia. If there is one thing that is certain, it's that an attack on any one individual's rights is an attack on us all, which is why the loudest and the quietest of us all should be equally determined to defeat this proposal in the court of public opinion. So now you have but one choice: Do you stand with the U.S. Constitution, or do you stand against it?
Andrew P. Connors is the director of communications for the Individual Rights Coalition.
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