If there's a time in your life for activism, it's college. After all, it's an environment where you are encouraged to try anything, generally with small consequences for failure.
Unfortunately, there is a dark side to activism - zealotry. Zealots lose sight of the value of alternative perspectives, and in some cases, ignore basic facts in order to support their theories.
Iris Halpern has fallen into this trap.
Obviously a committed and driven young woman, Halpern seems to have made a major impact on the Tufts community through her involvement in the Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM). But just as a reliance on information aided her fight for better wages for Tufts' janitors, her impassioned ignorance has undermined her sexual harassment claim against The Primary Source.
According to the Daily's coverage, this issue is fairly cut and dry. Halpern and SLAM have sparred with the Source for some time. The Source, always a bastion of good taste, ran a juvenile cartoon that allegedly poked fun at Halpern's body.
Halpern believes the cartoon constitutes sexual harassment, and the Source should be punished accordingly.
She's wrong.
Despite the Source's embarrassing lack of editorial discretion, Halpern's complete disregard of established legal principles should not go unanswered. Her latest blasting of the Committee on Student Life ("An Open Letter to the Committee on Student Life," 11/13) is nothing more than an incoherent, emotional response to a decision that rightfully went against her.
Halpern obsesses over the 25-minute length of the proceeding, as if it indicated a lack of thought by the committee. In fact, it should not have even taken that long, because Halpern never had a case to begin with.
For starters, the Source's cartoon in no way violates Tufts' sexual harassment policy, as listed in the Pachyderm. It was not a sexual advance made threatening her status as a student. It was not a sexual advance used as a basis for an academic decision affecting her. And, most importantly, Halpern has not shown that the cartoon satisfied the critical component of any sexual harassment suit, creating a "hostile environment" that "substantially affects [her] performance in work or in study."
But where Halpern truly errs is in her rejection of this case as a First Amendment issue. Whether or not she made a free expression complaint is entirely irrelevant in the committee's correct treatment of her claim as a First Amendment case. To state otherwise ignores a vast history of Supreme Court cases that clearly shields the media from such suits.
In particular, the Court has shown great leeway on the issue of parody. As far back as Sidis v. F-R Publishing, the Court demonstrated that a cartoon mocking a public figure - and William James Sidis barely fit into this category - was not libelous. Since that time, it has become a fact of media law that parody through cartoons does not constitute libel or harassment.
Clearly, the Source's cartoon was meant as a form of parody. And undoubtedly, Halpern had thrust herself into the public eye at Tufts. For the Committee on Student Life to ignore the Supreme Court's treatment of publications would be laughable.
If Halpern had her way, then you could say goodbye to Mad Magazine or Saturday Night Live's mocking of Bill Clinton's genitals or Jennifer Lopez's ass. In fact, any public figure could willingly sue for harassment over cartoons, since they are generally mocking in nature, whether sexually explicit or not.
Halpern needs to understand that US courts have continually placed the media in a special category, understanding the necessity of a robust press in ensuring the freedoms we enjoy. Occasionally, newspapers will exercise poor judgment, as was the case with the Source. But it's the price we pay to live in an open society, and is clearly preferable to the chilling effect on speech that would result from a lack of protection.
Ironically, it is the very First Amendment that Halpern mocks that allows her to protest vigorously for her strong beliefs. As an activist, she must be aware of her constitutionally protected right of free assembly, and as evidenced by her many Viewpoints in the Daily, she is aware of a concept of free speech.
But the true test of a belief system is when you are on the other side of the issue. For Halpern to take advantage of the First Amendment at one end and downplay its importance at the other is laughable. Though Tufts is a private institution, to deviate from the spirit of the constitution would be against the principles of higher education.
This is not an issue about sexual harassment or women's rights. It's about the Source's constitutionally-protected right to make an ass of itself. I feel for Halpern for having to endure such ridicule, but the solution is not an official rebuke of the Source.
It's more speech.
