On Thursday, Sept. 22, Macalester College announced that former Congresspeople Sam Coppersmith (D-Ariz.) and Dennis Ross (R-Fla.) will visit campus to discuss reproductive rights as part of the Congress to Campus program. This announcement has been met with outrage from many students.
The Congress to Campus event will unfold in various locations across campus on Monday, Oct. 10. The former representatives will visit classes and publicly discuss reproductive rights at 4:45 P.M. in the Mairs Concert Hall, among other activities. Attendees do not have to pay for admission but must register in advance due to capacity limits.
Former representatives Coppersmith and Ross will be discussing the Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization decision, which effectively overturned Roe v. Wade. The event is advertised as an opportunity to communicate across differences, including differing political perspectives in the Mac Daily. Many students do not believe this will be effective.
Bea Green 22, who voiced concerns surrounding the program, shared her opinion with The Mac Weekly.
Saying that [the former representatives] are going to engage respectfully in vigorous disagreement, which was the language used in the blurb, about an issue as fundamental as human rights that deeply impacts peoples health, peoples lives even, is disrespectful, Green said. And people in the audience are not learning how to communicate across difference.
Greens involvement with Congress to Campus doesnt end with her individual disapproval of the event. Green collaborated with Elise Sexton 23 to schedule a discussion on Friday, Sept. 30 with the organizers of the event, Political Science Professor Andrew Latham, American Studies Professor Duchess Harris and Macalester Forensics Director Beau Larsen. Larsen will oversee which questions the forensics team will ask Coppersmith and Ross during their discussion.
Sexton, Green and several other students prepared for this discussion by circulating an anonymous survey asking for community opinions about Congress to Campus. The group of students also met with Dr. Alina Wong, Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and Dr. Kathryn Kay Coquemont, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, for separate support.
In the meeting with Harris, Latham and Larsen, Sexton and Green read multiple responses to their survey. Although not all responses were read in the meeting, the survey received both positive and negative responses towards the Congress to Campus event.
I think its interesting and Im glad it is happening, one anonymous response read. The truth is that while rights shouldnt be debatable, they are being debated. Thats a hard truth. We cant just pretend that its not happening. Deplatforming the event doesnt actually change anything.
Reproductive rights arent up for debate, another response detailed. This event makes the dramatic loss of reproductive rights a purely academic conversation. It is not. Everyone has the right to bodily autonomy. Period.
The discussion also brought up the potential harms of the event timing. Many critics feel that it is inappropriate to hold Congress to Campus on Indigenous Peoples Day, as issues of reproductive justice disproportionately impact Indigenous communities.
I think in retrospect now, we wouldnt have chosen this date, Latham told The Mac Weekly. I didnt realize it was Indigenous Persons [sic] Day, and theres a lot of stuff going on across campus.
Although Harris and Latham chose the date for Congress to Campus, they did not choose former representatives Coppersmith and Ross as speakers. The representatives were chosen by Former Members of Congress, the organization that founded Congress to Campus.
In the update that Harris and Latham shared through the Mac Daily on Sept. 30, they responded to criticism about demographics of the former representatives: Weve heard concerns that both former members of Congress coming to campus are cisgender white men. Because the program only works with former members of Congress, the reality is that there are few female former members of Congress of any race, and few former members of Congress who identify as people of color.
Thats a reason why the people coming to campus ended up being two men, Sexton said in response. Thats not an excuse for picking a highly controversial topic that deals with an issue that affects a lot of women and amplifying the exact voices that we shouldnt be hearing on the issue.
Throughout the meeting between students and faculty, students brought up the future of Congress to Campus at Macalester. The contract that President Suzanne Rivera signed with Former Members of Congress assures Congress to Campus programming on campus for the next five years; the $2,000 commitment per year was donated by an alum. In future years, event organizers will have jurisdiction over what topics are discussed but not which former representatives visit campus.
This year, students did not have input in deciding the topic of the Congress to Campus programming. Members of the forensics team created questions to ask the former representatives, and Harris and Latham are planning on creating more opportunities for student input in the future. Harris shared that she is interested in working in collaboration with both students and outside organizations in the future.
It was saddening on Friday, to not just see the hurt in the room but to feel it, Harris said. And we are both committed to [asking], How does the campus move forward in this particular moment? And how do we live in this moment? And how do we collaborate with local organizations and national organizations to respond?
In her op-ed in The Mac Weekly with Latham, Why Congress to Campus Should be Held, the duo additionally suggests that individuals can take action by direct[ing their] righteous discontent to an organization like Family Tree Clinic, Gender Justice, UnRestrict Minnesota, Our Justice or SPIRAL Collective.
For Green and Sexton, future actions include distributing a Call to Partnership throughout the student body. This document will focus on what they believe was mishandled in organizing this years Congress to Campus programming and how the campus community can effectively move forward. In addition to this Call to Partnership, Green and Sexton plan on protesting outside the Mairs Concert Hall during the event.
I do think that communicating across differences, which is the stated goal of this event, is incredibly important, Green said. And its an incredibly important skill for Macalester students to learn and experience. But I feel that this event is not effective towards achieving that goal.
[emailprotected]
Read this article:
Students respond to upcoming Congress to Campus event - Macalester College The Mac Weekly
- Judge blocks Texas bill aimed at preventing social media companies from deplatforming people based on their ... - AOL - February 25th, 2024
- Introducing FIRE's Campus Deplatforming Database | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education - February 9th, 2024
- Alex Jones To Tucker Carlson: My Sin Was Decompartmentalizing The American Population - RealClearPolitics - December 11th, 2023
- Does 'deplatforming' work to curb hate speech and calls for ... - October 16th, 2023
- Weighing the Value and Risks of Deplatforming GNET - October 16th, 2023
- TIMELINE: Trump reinstated from 'permanent' social media bans, but will that last? - WCYB - March 31st, 2023
- Twitter Found Trump Didn't Violate Policy, But Banned Him Anyway - December 28th, 2022
- Social media misogyny: The new way Andrew Tate brought us the same old hate - December 28th, 2022
- Google Pays Sharath Bulusu: Well-meaning regulation will help market mature - The Indian Express - December 28th, 2022
- WordPress discussed deplatforming The New York Post after Hunter Biden ... - December 20th, 2022
- App Store 'Gatekeepers' Urged To Deplatform "Dangerous" Twitter Itself - December 12th, 2022
- FACT CHECK: Did Elon Musk Call Twitter Users Upset By Trumps ... - December 12th, 2022
- 'Deplatforming the President': Twitter Files Part 3 reveals events that led to removal of Donald Trump - Business Today - December 12th, 2022
- Twitter Files Part 2: Top Twitter execs interfered with US election before banning Donald Trump - msnNOW - December 12th, 2022
- Conservatives Are Mad Kanye Is Being Censored for Antisemitism ... - November 25th, 2022
- Chronicles Magazine : A Magazine of American Culture - November 17th, 2022
- Amazon accused of absurd and unacceptable censorship after book ... - November 17th, 2022
- PayPal's ideological deplatforming spurs proposed UK amendment to stop ... - November 17th, 2022
- Andrew Tates popularity decreases following deplatforming from social ... - November 7th, 2022
- This is for people who think deplatforming doesn't work - November 7th, 2022
- 4 Great Email Templates For Leaving Your Job - Jobbio Journal - October 31st, 2022
- What is Social Media? - TechTarget - October 31st, 2022
- The dangers of deplatforming - October 31st, 2022
- A Middlebury College Expert Explains the Ways Social Media Fuels Hate and How to Stop It - Seven Days - October 23rd, 2022
- Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million after misinformation campaign targeting Sandy Hook families - Yahoo Finance - October 15th, 2022
- Kanye West Bank Ban Is An Indefensible Slippery Slope - OutKick - October 15th, 2022
- My New Paper: Donald Trump Should Remain Deplatformed from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Despite the High Bar That Platforms Should Apply to the... - October 15th, 2022
- As Washington Post targets Catholic hospitals, every religious institution needs to build defenses - Washington Examiner - October 15th, 2022
- TMCs Derek OBrien steps in to give legitimacy to The Wires Meta joke that turned out to be a hoax - OpIndia - October 15th, 2022
- LeBron James' The Shop Will Not Air Episode Featuring Kanye West After Controversial Remarks By The Rapper - Yardbarker - October 15th, 2022
- Verizon Blacklists One America News Network Following ... - Breitbart - October 7th, 2022
- Conference aims to make trust and safety hot topics in computer science - The Stanford Daily - October 7th, 2022
- Sneako: Andrew Tate 2.0 Has Been Kicked Off YouTube | 2022 - The Latch - October 7th, 2022
- An Early Conservative Victory in the War on Big Tech | Opinion - Newsweek - October 7th, 2022
- Supreme Court Is Putting the Future of Section 230 Protections on Its Docket - Gizmodo - October 7th, 2022
- How to fundraise when the powerful want to stop you - Open Democracy - October 7th, 2022
- Piers Morgan Has Just Grilled Andrew Tate in a Live TV Interview - We Got This Covered - October 7th, 2022
- Kiwi Farms Is Down After Cloudflare Boots the Site as a Customer - September 29th, 2022
- How two Republicans in Florida are dominating the news - POLITICO - September 29th, 2022
- "White Psychodrama" and the culture wars: A self-reinforcing cycle, going nowhere - Salon - September 29th, 2022
- Regulating Misinformation on Twitter is a Problem, But There Are Bigger Ones on the Horizon - Tech Policy Press - September 29th, 2022
- It's Time to Stop Platforming the Big Lie Playbook - Tech Policy Press - September 29th, 2022
- Alex Jones' defamation trials show deplatforming's limits : NPR - September 21st, 2022
- Judges ruling against Twitter to protect the First Amendment did the opposite - MSNBC - September 21st, 2022
- Libs of TikTok vs. The Washington Post - Idaho State Journal - September 13th, 2022
- Journalist Glenn Greenwald scorches unholy alliance of government Democrats, corporate media and Big Tech - Fox News - September 13th, 2022
- Deplatforming Andrew Tate is the best way to deal with him - Los Angeles Loyolan - September 5th, 2022
- Andrew Tate joins Rumble after Big Tech deplatforming, will post ... - August 28th, 2022
- Pro-Masculine Influencer Andrew Tate Joins Rumble After Big Tech ... - August 28th, 2022
- NBC Journalist Who Attacked Libs Of TikTok Once Took Credit For ... - August 28th, 2022
- Web3 Will Make Or Break Social Media - Forbes - August 28th, 2022
- 2022 Tech Trends | The Future Today Institute - August 20th, 2022
- Commentary: Twitter fast becoming a thought-policed sandbox - The Herald Journal - August 20th, 2022
- What the Trial of Alex Jones Revealed About His Finances - The New York Times - August 12th, 2022
- Big Tech's Ban on Alex Jones Fans the Flames of His Conspiracy Theories - Reason - August 4th, 2022
- A New Cloud Company Looking to Disrupt The Old Order - Digital Journal - August 4th, 2022
- Nazis try to get on the ballot in Massachusetts - but may not have collected enough signatures - Universal Hub - August 4th, 2022
- Meme Creators Want Instagram To Change Its Content Moderation Policies And Stop Deplatforming Them - BuzzFeed News - July 26th, 2022
- Alexs War: A film about the de-platformed conspiracy theorist hits iTunes July 29 - BGR - July 26th, 2022
- Dozens of States Are Jumping on the Social Media Censorship Bandwagon - Gizmodo - July 26th, 2022
- What is Mike Lees TEAM Act and how would it reform Big Tech? | Opinion - Deseret News - July 18th, 2022
- Amid fears of election subversion, DeSantis' handpicked secretary of state will oversee his race - Salon - July 18th, 2022
- Internal Twitter messages show employees targeting Libs of TikTok ... - July 9th, 2022
- Leaked internal messages show Twitter employees debating whether to ban us - July 9th, 2022
- Trump Appeals Dismissal Of Preposterous Suit Against Twitter For Tortious Deplatforming - Above the Law - June 29th, 2022
- Loud music and take-out alcohol. Here are all the new Florida laws going into effect - WKMG News 6 & ClickOrlando - June 29th, 2022
- Study suggests identity advancement plays a key role in the downplaying of Trump's unethical behaviors - PsyPost - June 29th, 2022
- The brewing fight to keep abortion info online - The Verge - June 29th, 2022
- Yes, Elon, There is a Better Way. - International Policy Digest - June 10th, 2022
- Crypto Is An Invaluable Tool In The Fight Against Financial Oppression - - FinanceFeeds - May 25th, 2022
- Law's Jessie Hill discussed the legality of social media "deplatforming" - The Daily | Case Western Reserve University - May 11th, 2022
- Court Dropkicks Trump Twitter LOLsuit For THAT'S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS - Above the Law - May 11th, 2022
- Commentary: Is Ron DeSantis the Trump of the future? - Palm Beach Post - May 11th, 2022
- Jesus, endless war and the irresistible rise of American fascism - Salon - May 11th, 2022
- Who did Twitter ban during the Trump era, and why? - Los Angeles Times - April 28th, 2022
- The Unholy Alliance Between the US Security Apparatus and Big Tech - Fair Observer - April 28th, 2022
- Jimmy Kimmel Weighs-in on Not De-Platforming Joe Rogan: Its Not as Black and White as Sometimes the Media Makes It Out to Be - EssentiallySports - April 28th, 2022
- 'More tears and tantrums on Twitter are guaranteed' - The Week UK - April 28th, 2022
- Social media has a serious disinformation problem. But it can be fixed - The Indian Express - April 13th, 2022
- Social media company Minds and Daryl Davis tell Joe Rogan ... - April 13th, 2022