Monday, March 13, 2006

Does UNC - Chapel Hill administration and faculty response to The Pit attack reveal a double standard?

It's interesting to compare UNC - Chapel Hill administration and faculty response to the recent attack on students in The Pit with their response a year ago when a student claimed he was attacked near campus by a group of white males because he was gay.

With only the student's word for why he was attacked, a large rally, which Chancellor Moeser addressed, was quickly organized. Here's part of what The Gazette, an administration/faculty newsletter, reported:

The University community rallied together last week in the wake of an assault on a 21-year-old student on Franklin Street.

Chapel Hill police said the Feb. 25th assault may have been motivated by prejudice related to sexual orientation.

That news motivated students to organize a March 1 rally and march that attracted between 300 and 500 people. The crowd gathered first at the Pit, holding candles in a show of solidarity, listening to speakers decry the attack and urging unity and tolerance.

Police had not made any arrests when the "Gazette" went to press.
...
Chancellor James Moeser, along with a number of administrators, faculty and staff, joined with the students in the rally in a show of support for the student and his family.

Moeser said such an act of violence raised deep concerns.

"This university community seeks to be a welcoming and comfortable place for all students," Moeser said. "I encourage all of us gathered here to embrace tolerance, truth and inclusion."

Moeser also reminded students who felt threatened by the attack that there are people on campus -- and policies such as the campus nondiscrimination policy -- for support and assistance. (For more information on the University's nondiscrimination policy, visit www.unc.edu/campus/policies/ nondiscrim.html.)
...
Even before the incident, the Office of the Dean of Students had begun its annual spring Safe Zone training. The program aims to create a network of allies for lesbian, gay, bisexuals, transgender and queer identified (LGBTQ) students, and by doing so, to make the community safer and more supportive, officials said. Safe Zone training is open to all faculty, staff and students.

The next training session will be held March 30 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The final session will be from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on April 13.
The attack took place on Feb. 25, 2005. The victim, Thomas Stockwell, attended the rally but was not identified in The Gazette story because he wanted "anonymity."However, he subsequently gave press interviews. As far as I know the perpetrators were never identified.

Is there a double standard at UNC - Chapel Hill? What do you think?

Update Mar. 14: Michelle Malkin links today to a Raleigh News & Observer story in which a terrorism expert is quoted as saying of Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar:

"Well, he's a terrorist," Bradman said of Taheri-azar. "In this world of global terrorism, you don't have ties back to any particular group. In this new world, terror comes from incitement -- it doesn't come from an organization. The only thing that makes this not look like a terrorist act is that he did a lousy job of it."

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, it's a single standard.

It's not consistent, but it's unitary.

-AC