U. to implement new speech policy

Highland Park High School '92 Highland Park, Ill. After months of debate and speculation, Interim President Claire Fagin announced in mid-November that she was forming a committee to develop a replacement for part of the University's Racial Harassment Policy. Part II of the Policy, which forbids verbal or symbolic behavior that demeans a person on the basis of race, color, ethnicity or national origin, was the section which caused the most heated debate. The debate arose after the well-publicized "water buffalo" incident, when then-College freshman Eden Jacobowitz yelled those now-famous words from his dormitory window toward a group of black sorority sisters making noise. After that incident, Fagin said, she spoke with "hundreds" of people on campus who are divided on the issue of whether to suspend Part II. In a joint statement issued by Fagin and Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson, the administrators said they found few students who supported the way Part II was enforced, but that students were divided over whether the section should be kept at all. Some think it infringes on the exercise of free speech on campus, while others think the policy is a necessary protection against a hostile environment. "Many of those urging us to keep the racial harassment policy believe that it symbolizes institutional opposition to hatred and verbal abuse," the statement read. "This concern has been heightened by recent threatening telephone calls and bomb threats to campus residents and residences." Based on those findings, Fagin offered her compromise -- a committee made up primarily of students will create a replacement for Part II, which was supposed to have been completed by June 30. "Our intention is to have this completed in a way that's positive for the University by June 30, 1994 and hand this as a gift to our successors," Fagin said. Students were just as divided on Fagin's decision as they had been on the issue since its inception. While some students applauded Fagin's initiative to appoint a committee to come up with a replacement to Part II, others said her decision was nothing more than a "cop-out." "I think it was obviously the right decision on her part," Wharton sophomore Jamal Powell said. "I think she would have faced too much negative slack had she revoked it." Others, like College sophomore Suzy Levinson, disagreed. "I truly believe that people should be able to say what they choose if it doesn't threaten other people," Levinson said. "As little structure as possible should be put into [a policy like this]." Engineering freshman Chiram Littleton said Fagin's decision was a "cop-out." "It seems like it's kind of a cop-out in a way," he said. "If you say that you're going to solve something and then you put it off until the summertime, you're avoiding the problem. "I think there should be some kind of standard, but I don't know what it is," Littleton added. College sophomore Amy Krissman said the issue is inherently complicated, with no clear-cut answer. "There are so many tactics and so many sides and so many opinions involved that it just becomes so overwhelming," she said. Fagin said Krissman was absolutely right. "Never in my life, in all my experience, have I ever dealt with an issue as divisive and as emotional as this," she said. "And I have dealt with a lot of issues."