THE CONTROVERSY over offensive comics continues to be an interesting case study here at the University. The most recent incident sparked opened the floodgates of Opinion columns and letters to the editor articulating almost every point of view possible on the issue. Few, however, have stepped up to defend our University from the divisive external forces that underestimate what it means to be a Wahoo. While many of us disagree about what limit, if any, to put on free speech, I strongly believe that we all agree that contrary to Bill O'Reilly's opinion, the common bonds forged by our experiences at the University are infinitely more important than our everyday disagreements.
Last week, in response to the comic controversy, Bill O'Reilly issued an opinion indicating his preference for demagoguery rather than reasoned debate. After a typical harangue against the University, O'Reilly urged our alumni to stop donating money until President Casteen revoked The Cavalier Daily's lease. First of all, The Cavalier Daily, in Jeffersonian tradition, is a newspaper entirely independent of the University. Of course, O'Reilly's perfunctory Google search on our University and The Cavalier Daily didn't reveal this fact to him, nor did his slack journalistic ethics prevent him from commenting on an institution he knows nothing about.
There are at least two points to be made against O'Reilly's demand that Casteen pull The Cavalier Daily's lease. Specifically, O'Reilly is referring to the lease that allows The Cavalier Daily to operate in the basement of Newcomb Hall. This lease, signed for three more years, cannot legally be pulled by the University. O'Reilly is suggesting the University engage in unlawful activities and, luckily for him, the First Amendment allows him to make such a suggestion. However, luckily for us, the University assigns more weight to the sanctity of contract than it does to a 30-second O'Reilly diatribe.
Suppose that The Cavalier Daily lease was coming to an end tomorrow and that the University did have a legal option not to renew the lease. Then the University would have to face a simple but crucial decision about its policy on free speech and independent press. The ramifications of disallowing The Cavalier Daily from occupying a space on Grounds on the basis of "comics in poor taste" are both un-American and unconstitutional. Back in 1995, the Supreme Court ruled in Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia that the University could not deny a student publication, "Wide Awake," funding on the basis of that publication's content. O'Reilly would probably agree with the outcome of this case, given that the content was Christian.
As shocking as it may be, the Constitution works for everyone. Just as the University cannot deny funding to a publication on the basis of its content, it most certainly could not constitutionally deny a building lease on the grounds that it finds a paper's occasional comic to be in poor taste. Furthermore, this all assumes the University is interested in pursuing this kind of authoritarianism; fortunately, the University has proven itself to be the kind of free, democratic institution that Mr. Jefferson would be proud of.
Now that we've established O'Reilly's explicit demand to be ignorant, ludicrous and downright unconstitutional, we should remind ourselves that his implicit claim is even more wrong, even more offensive. In the Orwellian "No Spin Zone," O'Reilly makes a living off of dividing the country -- that is, he does not seek the path of an independent press but quite often attacks the core values and representatives of nearly half the country -- Democrats. Of course, the other half of the country empathizes with him. This formula works well for O'Reilly, keeping the ratings high and earning him the raving responses that keep his show on the air.
This formula should not and cannot work when applied to our own institution. While O'Reilly and other polemicists (including liberal ones) are quite good at coaxing the nation into forgetting what we have in common, none of them can break the bonds among University students and alumni. Infinitely more important than politics are the times we share together here at the University -- the times we share with our friends, regardless of what they think about a comic. What O'Reilly and others cannot ever understand is what it feels like to sing the Good Ole Song after your football team pounds No. 4-ranked Florida State University with score after score. The outsider world cannot understand the pains of a Friday discussion or the euphoria that kicks in immediately when the minute hand strikes 50. They've never tasted a s'more on a white, snowy Lawn, after a Hullabahoos performance and right before the Christmas lights come on. They never will.
Somewhere among the $2 pitchers at Biltmore, the cold splashing welcome of Blue Hole, streaking the Lawn with your best friends and late nights at Clemons, lies a University experience that ties us all together. The money our alumni donate help perpetuate that experience -- that we depend on their donations is no secret. So when polemicists like O'Reilly need something to carp about for a few minutes, asking our beloved alumni to abandon the University is a waste of their time. Our alumni are among the most philanthropic people in this country; they have generously donated and will continue to donate to something much more meaningful than the content of O'Reilly's program: the experience of being a Wahoo.
Sina Kian's column usually appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at skian@cavalierdaily.com.