 "Photo: BRYAN MORRISON/Courtesy Photo")
Editors note: A previous version of this article read “Some of the potentially offensive messages written by UNIFI members included the words “F—k Jesus Chris” and an image of Jesus with a phallus in this mouth.” However, there is no evidence to suggest a member of UNIFI drew the mentioned phallus.
Campus was divided Wednesday when the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers hosted UNI’s participation in the Blasphemy Day International event, a day devoted to the defense of free speech and blasphemy.
Members of the group chalked blasphemous messages Tuesday night, including bible verses, secular quotes and cartoons. Wednesday, they held a spontaneous discussion with roughly 70 people about religion at Maucker Union. While the UNI Police were present to monitor the event, no arrests were made and no crimes were reported.
With regards to the potential offensiveness of the chalked messages, Assistant Manager for Marketing and Public Relations James O’Connor reported that the messages have been sent to the university’s Bias Response Team — a group whose purpose is to coordinate the university’s response to bias-related incidents that affect the campus community – for review. At press time, the BRT is in the process of planning a meeting to determine whether the remarks violate the law or university conduct policies.
“While hate crimes are well-defined in federal and state statutes, hate speech is not as well-defined,” O’Connor said.
The event created animosity on campus, especially among religious groups. Several people erased some of the chalked messages Tuesday night, while many responses were written. Some of the potentially offensive messages written included the words “F—k Jesus Christ” and an image of Jesus with a phallus in his mouth.
“There was a lot of kind of lowbrow chalking, I would guess, and there was some profanity. While that’s not what I chalked, and that’s not something I would chalk, I definitely support our members chalking whatever they want to chalk, because it was a day to protect free speech,” said UNIFI President Trevor Boeckmann.
There were several reactions across campus, including the creation of the upcoming event “You Are Beautiful UNI.” The event is being planned by sophomore Lizzie White, who was offended by UNIFI’s methods during Blasphemy Day.
“I think that there’s a fine line between sharing your opinion and forcing it on someone, and I think that it was crossed,” she said.
According to White, “You Are Beautiful” was an art movement in downtown Chicago where artists used any medium to create a spontaneous mural of public uplifting messages. She plans to bring the idea to UNI Wednesday at 9 p.m. by chalking cheerful messages around campus to counteract the offensive messages of Blasphemy Day.
“I’m just trying to remind people to respect each other—to just be nice, basically,” she said. “I think that people just need to take a step back and recognize that we all have feelings and that what we say really affects people.”
Another reaction is the new student organization UNI Tolerance, a group formed to promote tolerance and understanding between everyone and to bring people together. Sophomore David Naylor formed the group in reaction to UNIFI’s chalked messages as well as the chalked responses.
“A lot of the chalk that UNIFI had put made me extremely angry, but the level of immaturity of some of the responses made me just as angry,” he said. “There are some chalked responses that are just completely ridiculous and not warranted at all.”
UNI Tolerance met for the first time Thursday, and decided to become a part of “You Are Beautiful UNI” as well as “UNIFI’s monthly Grab a Brew, Share Your View” discussion. Boeckmann was present at the meeting, stating that he felt its message of tolerating people was in line with what UNIFI is all about.
“What you do have to respect is people, and people and their ideas are different. Ideas don’t deserve rights, people do,” Boeckmann said.
“I think that there’s a negative image (for UNIFI) as far as tolerating people, and so I hope involvement with UNI Tolerance can help with that,” he later added.
Blasphemy Day didn’t only polarize campus, however, but also members of UNIFI.
“Leading a group of atheists is often compared to herding cats: it’s impossible. We have no dogma; we’re a collection of people who don’t believe in something. So any event we do, there’s always members who think we should be doing something else,” Boeckmann said.
Graduate student Tyler Vincent, who considers himself a friend of UNIFI, posted a message on the group’s blog speaking out against Blasphemy Day, citing the chalked remarks as “childish.”
“What I sensed was that they had decided that they were going to tee off on religious people and really unleash the anger and the frustration that they had with it,” he said. “They went wild. And it really rubbed people the wrong way.
“They fostered an environment that appealed to the worst in people, not the best,” he later added.
Vincent expressed concern for the group and its members, whom he considers to be his close friends. He noted a disconcerting change in the group’s rhetoric a few months ago, which he worries is turning UNIFI into a hate group. He began to become worried by the many blog posts regarding Blasphemy Day.
“All of a sudden they started getting into blasphemy contests, as if we’re going to see how offensive we can be towards people, and that really rubbed me the wrong way,” he said.
According to Vincent, the change in rhetoric has been notable throughout the year, and said the recent Flying Spaghetti Monster Dinner “seemed like now they were making fun of everybody who believed in some sort of higher power.
“Somebody drew a picture of Jesus with a penis in his mouth. And (UNIFI Vice President Cory Derringer) said, ‘Well, I would have stopped that as an officer,’ but you created that kind of environment to begin with by what you were doing,” Vincent said.
“It’s possible that some people did get carried away,” Derringer said. “I, myself, was one of those people at one point. But I still think the overall message of the day – the message of free speech – got out and reached a lot of people. Getting that message out is worth the mistakes a few people made. If we inadvertently created that kind of environment where those mistakes were made, it was still worth it to get that message of free speech out.”
Professor Jerome Soneson, head of the department of philosophy and world religions, agreed with the defense of free speech, but disagreed with UNIFI’s methods.
“Merely making claims or making cartoons or something doesn’t do much other than to provoke. It doesn’t provoke thinking as much as feeling,” he said.
Soneson supports offense, believing that it’s necessary for the introduction of new ideas, citing feminism as an example. However, he believes that discussion is necessary for introducing new thought.
“If the aim of this group was to use the right for free speech for the purpose of promoting discussion, I think they chose the wrong vehicle,” Soneson said. “If they want to get a lot of people angry, then maybe they chose the right vehicle.”
For Boeckmann, however, the purpose of the event was merely to protect free speech and blasphemy.
“I think we showed this campus how endangered free speech is,” Boeckmann said. “It exposed people who said, ‘I support free speech, but not when it offends people’ or ‘But this is too far.’ Free speech doesn’t work like that: free speech is an all-or-nothing proposition.”
Soneson felt that the increased discussion was one benefit of the event that will keep the American value alive.
“There has been a lot of talk about free speech, and that is a real blessing,” Soneson said. “Because people in the United States often think that, well, free speech is a natural right; we all have it, there’s nothing to talk about. When something like this comes up, then people are forced to think about this very important value in our lives. And without it, we might never think about it at all, and the very value of free speech might be lost.”
9 comments
you are absolutely right...while i disagree with what you say I will defend your right to say it to the death. If you dont like free speech you can take action and work on amending the constitution. Thats what great about our constitutional republic. USA! USA! USA!
I LOVE HITLER! (free speech)
Does Dr. Soneson know that UNIFI cosponsors Grab a Brew, Share Your View once a month with a local church, an open mic forum discussing topics of controversy? UNIFI has a repertoire of "vehicles" that have been used and will be used to incite discussion about topics that for too long have gone unchallenged and undiscussed. What Blasphemy Day did was expose the willingness for individuals, on a campus nevertheless, to censor free expression. This goes without mentioning the threats of violence from people opposed to the demonstration that unfolded throughout the day.
Does Dr. Soneson know that UNIF cosponsors Grab a Brew, Share Your View once a month with a local church, a open mic forum discussing topics of controversy? UNIFI has a repertoire of "vehicles" that have been used and will be used to incite discussion about topics that for too long have gone unchallenged and undiscussed. What Blasphemy Day did was expose the willingness for individuals, on a campus nevertheless, to censor free expression. This goes without mentioning the threats of violence from people opposed to the demonstration that unfolded throughout the day.