As a proud parent of a Tufts student, I send more than $40,000 to Tufts every year. I appreciate the value of education. I appreciate the value of a Tufts education. And I have long admired Tufts throughout my lifelong association with "tiny TU." My father was on the faculty and the administration at Tufts for 40 years.
In the 1950s, I learned to swim in the Tufts pool, I often visited Jumbo (before he burned), and I remember summer cookouts on the golf course that is now covered with dormitories. I remember Tufts from my childhood as a kindly and inclusive place of warm fellowship amongst the many ethnicities in its community. The strongly diverse population of today's Tufts community is firmly founded on its history of respect for all.
When the hateful writings of The Primary Source were brought to my attention, it was easy to see there was nothing of the real Tufts in them, and I dismissed them as some of the many ugly oddities that my children will encounter, but nothing more; none of my business. However, I was surprised to learn that The Primary Source gets $20,000 a year from Tufts. Assuming there are 5,000 students at Tufts, I am paying $4 per year to The Primary Source.
Now it's my business.
Political buffoonery and satire have been with us for thousands of years, from the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes to Alexander Pope in the 17th century and Charles Dickens in the 19th century; down through Al Capp in the '50s and '60s, Garry Trudeau's "Doonesbury," and the electronic media's Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.
Admittedly, Limbaugh and Coulter seem to take themselves seriously but their use of sarcasm, and name-calling cannot be mistaken for straightforward political discourse and must be seen as entertaining buffoonery like political cartoons.
In sharp contrast, The Primary Source's two efforts to ridicule blacks and Muslims were so poorly written, humorless and tasteless in tone as to be self-parodies, but nevertheless they are distant cousins to the Limbaugh/Coulter/Stern style of playground teasing and name-calling.
A spluttering attack on President Bacow written by Matthew Gardner-Schuster, editor in chief of The Primary Source, attempts to insert a foundation under their attacks. The attempt is a kind of "shoot first, rationalize later" maneuver to paper over the mean-spirited adolescent mockery of blacks and Muslims by pretending they were meant to raise serious questions about religion or ethnicity.
It didn't work. The Primary Source pieces must rightly be seen as hate-mongering and outside the realm of civil political discourse.
Nevertheless, it is none of my business whether Tufts gives them a forum. Indeed, Tufts has a long history of supporting diversity, and I would expect Tufts to allow them to have their say.
Just not on my dime.
I strongly object to having any of the money I send to Tufts go to fund The Primary Source. To me, hate-mongering is outside the spectrum of acceptable political dialogue in this country.
Hate-mongering is special and deserves to be treated specially. It's un-American and deserves to be scorned and opposed wherever it occurs.
That said, it would be counter to our great tradition of free speech to ban The Primary Source or to cramp their obnoxious style with censorship or censure. Their low-minded provocations test the strength of our commitment to free speech, but ultimately, I think it is within their rights as Americans to be as stupid as they care to be.
Yet it ought to be within my rights to NOT fund them, even if it is only $4 a year. My guess is that the 52 black sophomores and the Islamic students at Tufts might also balk at funding The Primary Source because of its anonymous and cowardly behavior. Regardless of whether it's The Primary Source, the Tufts Democrats or the knitting club, any university-funded organization should refrain from hate-mongering. Indeed, it seems a quite basic expectation.
Revoke The Primary Source's funding. My $4 should go elsewhere.
Let them speak, but not on my dime.
