Protesting is picking up some, not everyone is tolerant

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Protest Ends in Arrests
4 students taken to CPD precinct and charged
by Jarrett C. Belle-Isle

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

-Read letters from the community about this event.

Two students protested the presence of Marine recruiters in the Reynolds Club. They designed the protest as a mock Nazi recruitment campaign, dressing as members of the "American Nazi Youth Corps" to draw attention to what they claimed were parallels between the Third Reich and the US military under the current administration. ORCSA staff ordered the protesters to disband; when they refused, they and two other students who had joined in were arrested by UCPD. I watched the events and photographed them on my cell phone.


Fourth-year Ben Fink is led away by a UCPD officer

Two fourth-years and friends of mine, Jeremy Cohan and Ben Fink, planned and spearheaded the protest. Dressing in all black and carrying a banner that read "Don't join the Marines, join the American Nazi Youth Corps," they stood at attention in the Reynolds Club marketplace at 12:15 Tuesday and competed for recruits. They claimed that the Nazi Party was a better choice than the Marines because the former, unlike the latter, was at least honest about its bloodlust and hate-mongering. As a visual aide, they provided plastic baby dolls, which they encouraged students to rip to pieces as preparation for a career with either the Nazis or the Marines.

US military recruiters can be seen from time to time in the marketplace, providing information about careers in the armed forces. The issue of recruiters on campuses is in focus right now as the Supreme Court reviews Rumsfeld v Fair. The case concerns the 1st Amendment right of universities to deny recruiters access to campus.

The protesters aimed to compare the practices of the U.S. military to some practices of the Nazis. According to Fink and Cohan, they did not intend to claim that the Marines were Nazis or bad people. Rather, they wanted to criticize the institution. Cohan cited a number of ills he attributed to the Marines, including "institutionalized homophobia," "invasion of privacy," "aggressive action at worst, choking bureaucracy at best." Cohan also criticized the military for conducting what he considers aggressive, imperialistic, and unnecessary wars.


A UCPD officer reaches out to arrest fourth-year Jeremy Cohan

Coincidentally, members of Hillel, the Jewish student organization, were tabling in the marketplace during the protest. They expressed offense at the use of Nazi imagery.


A UCPD officer displays the banner the protesters carried

Two ORCSA staffers, Timothy Banks and Charlene Holly, arrived and asked Cohan and Fink to move out of the center of the room. Cohan and Fink complied. They asked to see the protesters' University identification cards. The protesters flashed their cards. According to Banks, the protesters refused to present their cards in such a way that he could identify them by name, which, he said, is required by University policy.

A short while later, the staffers demanded that the students end their protest, citing the hurtful nature of their rhetoric. The two protesters refused to leave and stated the intentions of their protest. The ORCSA staffers said that they had the authority to order anyone to leave the Reynolds Club at any time. When I asked them to cite a particular law or university policy, the staffers said that the relevant text could be found in the student manual, but refused to point to a particular passage.

So, I looked it up. I showed the staffers the section of the manual entitled Civil Behavior in a University Setting. Part of this section reads:

"The ideas of different members of the University community will frequently conflict and we do not attempt to shield people from ideas that they may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even offensive. There are, however, some circumstances in which behavior so violates our community's standards that formal University intervention may be appropriate. Acts of violence, and explicit threats of violence directed at a particular individual that compromise that individual's safety or ability to function within the University setting are direct affronts to the University's values and warrant intervention by University officials."

The staffers told me that their decision was not up for debate, and they were not bound by university policy. Banks later clarified, saying that the student manual is too broad to be practical for administration of individual buildings. Instead, he said, administrators must make their own policies for the buildings they govern. "There are obviously university guidelines. . .and then there are the building guidelines," said Banks. In making building guidelines, Banks told me, administrators consider both the general guidelines of the student manual and the needs of their particular space. This, he acknowledged, raises a question: what is the real weight of the guarantees set forth in the student manual?

They claimed that the protesters had not made proper arrangements with ORCSA beforehand. Once before, Cohan had protested Marine recruiters and been ordered to leave by ORCSA because he had not given ORCSA advanced notice. ORCSA staff at that time promised to inform Cohan of the next time the recruiters would be on campus so that he could properly schedule a protest. ORCSA did not follow through with this promise, ensuring that any protest that took place would be against their policy. Thus, Cohan was unable to plan for today's events. When he heard that the recruiters were on campus, he devised his protest on the spot. ORCSA staffers today denied having made such a promise.

Two members of the Spartacus Youth Club, Tom Discepola and Brian Stapleton, joined the protest. They began chanting "Administrators hands off, recruiters off campus." The ORCSA staffers insisted that the two Spartacus members not shout.

For a while, the staffers and students continued arguing. The staffers ordered the students to leave, threatening police action. The students refused. UCPD officers arrived shortly. After some deliberation, the officers spoke to the protesters and placed them under arrest at about 1 o'clock. All four (Fink, Cohan, Discepola, and Stapleton) were led out of the building in handcuffs and driven to the UCPD station.


A member of the Spartacus Youth Club is taken away by two UCPD officers

UCPD transfers custody of all arrestees to the Chicago Police Department. Accordingly, CPD officers transported the four students to the 2nd Precinct at 51st and Wentworth. The students were released this evening with court dates scheduled. They have been charged with disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. Stephen Klass, Vice President and Dean of Students, said that the University will ask for the charges to be dropped. The University, he said, will address the event through "the College's internal disciplinary processes." The University has not yet commented on the extent of any intended disciplinary action.


The Robert M. Harness police station, where the students were taken

Please email me at jarrett@uchicago.edu if you have any comments, corrections, or anything else. If you like, I will publish any letter you send me about the event.

Visitors: 2840

About the only grounds would be to say that the faux Nazi stuff was a breach of community standards because it reminds people of real Nazi stuff and the parody as political speech aspect is irrelevant. Um good luck in court on that.

the Marine recruiters in my day by showing up in force all at once and having a peaceful sit-in which we had not bothered to announce in advance since this tips off the goon squads.