Max Karson: CU Boulder A "Racist Hell-Hole", His Moonbat Attempt To Start Dialogue On Race Backfires

Max Karson continues to fan the flames of the controversy of his own making, and the issue is not free speech, but racism:

A statement posted on the student newspaper's Web site Wednesday singled out Karson as the only person suspended from contributing to the online-only newspaper's content. But CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard on Thursday said all of the regular opinion-writing staff will be reassigned to other duties while changes are made.

"Max has been an editorial page assistant editor, and all of the duties of all of the editorial page editors have been suspended because the editorial page itself at the Campus Press has been suspended pending a restructuring and re-envisioning of what they're going to do with it," Hilliard said.
. . .
However, his letter to the Camera described his contempt for the opposition to him and the Campus Press.

"Sometimes it's necessary to offend in order to provoke thought about difficult subjects," Karson wrote. "For example, in my 'Asians' piece, I poked fun at Asian stereotypes for the purpose of mocking racist white people who never bother to understand or even consider Asian cultures and race relations at the University of Colorado.

So Karson is really a moonbat whose attempt to stir up a conflagration about race initially succeeded, but ultimately backfired when the object of the opposition became his own rather pathetic attempt at satire and not the "institutional racism" that, according to Karson, supposedly permeates CU Boulder:

I went to the rally full of excitement because I thought that the public conversation was going to move forward to the subject of racial tension at CU -- a subject that is consistently ignored by the general public, school officials and the media. But as the event organizers got up and gave their speeches, I felt my insides sink.

Every single speech was focused on my writing. They called it racist, insisted that it was not satire, and demanded that we reject hate speech as a community. The opportunity to bring new stories and ideas to the conversation was wasted on an hour of angry protests against my jokes ridiculing Asian stereotypes.

And that's what I can't stand. I can't stand that people would rather gossip about me than tell their own stories about racism. I can't stand that the people who experience racism every day would rather waste their energy on demanding the suppression of clearly protected speech instead of adding their own speech to the mix. I can't stand that our student leaders are simply giving more ammo to the angry conservatives who claim that liberals always suppress dissenting speech.

The sad irony of their CU-sanctioned protest was succinctly put into words by David Chiu: "We as a community seek the immediate resignation of the Campus Press staff and university faculty responsible for the publication of these articles. We do not want a scapegoat offered up for sacrifice to meet the demands of an infuriated public."

Yes, David, you do want a scapegoat. I stood there and watched the attending university officials smile and nod while you spoke. Do you know why they were smiling? Because even though they're the ones in charge of the racist hell-hole we call CU, you still managed to blame the hateful attitudes of thousands of people on a dorky, smart-mouthed kid with authority problems.

And your solution, of course, is the same as theirs. You think that if you shut me up, you'll be one step closer to the "hate-free environment" you dream of. It reminds me of when university officials apologize for my piece instead of apologizing for the fact that minority students don't feel safe at their school, and when the CU Student Union passed a self-aggrandizing resolution to condemn racist writing instead of encouraging public dialogue on the subject.

Racism has been driven underground and institutionalized over the past several decades. The days of hood-wearing and cross-burning, at least in Boulder, are over. Now racism lives in policies and micro-messages such as looks, remarks, and avoidance.

If you really want to fight racism, you have to allow people to express it, and then you have to engage it, not stomp it back into invisibility. No matter how much it hurts us, open dialogue is the answer.

My job as a journalist is to create that open dialogue by amplifying the voices of students -- even students with racist or other hateful ideas that I disagree with. Your job as an activist is to engage those ideas with community dialogue, and if you find them hurtful or upsetting, to try to change the minds of the people who espouse them.

Perhaps Karson should work on coordinating his "journalistic" efforts with those of the "activists" on campus. Not only is Karson's conception of what a journalist's responsibilities should be (no doubt instilled by the stellar CU School of Journalism) off-base, his own estimation of his writing abilities as a critical thinker and dialogue-starter are poorly served by whining self-indulgence and poorly constructed shock-jock bloviations. Given Karson's high opinion of himself, it is a surprise that he didn't figure on his implicit allies--the professionally outraged--not picking up on his "brilliant" plan and making him the focus of their efforts.

Karson won't be the first moonbat who believed that manufacturing and faking a racist incident--in this case poorly masked as "satire"--to "start a dialogue" would be a good idea. Sadly, he won't be the last.

Max Karson's Campus Press "Satire" Draws Rally And Suspension, Even More Calls For Apologies

"It will never be law, however, because the Supreme Court, no matter how conservative or liberal it might be, will never approve its manifest capriciousness, both as law and social policy. But it can weasel its way into practice if people who should know better, people such as Chancellor Peterson and Dean Voakes, validate "offensiveness" as the arbiter of free speech in university discourse. That is the kind of thing that really does do damage"--Peter Michelson, Professor emeritus of English at CU


Max Karson


Rallying to protest Max Karson and the Campus Press, singing "We Shall Overcome"

Max Karson's "satirical" editorial continues to enrage the professionally outraged activists at CU:

The University of Colorado student author of an opinion column that garnered national attention for saying Asians "hate us all" and should be hated back was suspended from the Campus Press newspaper staff Wednesday.

"Max Karson's duties with the Campus Press have been suspended pending a restructuring of the opinions section," according to a statement posted on the student paper's Web site Wednesday.
. . .
The statement goes on to say that the publication's editors are in the process of organizing an "open, public forum to address diversity sensitivity in our news coverage" and are rewriting their ethics policy.

The announcement came the same day university officials said they're close to announcing major changes in the way the paper is operated and overseen.

The transparency of the process is astounding:

Faculty members within the CU School of Journalism and Mass Communication met behind closed doors for more than two hours Wednesday to discuss how to best change the management structure of the Campus Press, a class that operates within the school, so that offensive content doesn't get published.

Concessions, concessions--and more apologies from the CU administration:

Paul Voakes, dean of the journalism school, did release a statement from the faculty group that served equally as an apology.

"This (column) is the antithesis of what we're trying to teach in our school," Voakes said. "The faculty and I take responsibility for the offense that the Campus Press obviously has caused."

He called Karson's column an "editorial mistake" that should have been caught.

Even local politicians have gotten involved:

Boulder City Manager Frank Bruno released a statement saying, "Discrimination is not what Boulder is about."

Unless you're a conservative in Boulder.

More faux rage, and the Feds!:

Also, about 150 students gathered on the University Memorial Center south plaza for a rally and demonstration against the Campus Press.

Chris Choe, a 21-year-old senior and member of the Korean American Students at Boulder group who led the rally, said he hopes the university's administration fundamentally changes how content is reviewed before it's published by the class.

"I want to see responsibility," Choe said. "I want to see that this isn't being marginalized."

Later, the group migrated to a large auditorium on the campus for a forum among Campus Press representatives, CU officials and student leaders.

Federal mediators brought in by student organizers from the U.S. Department of Justice moderated the public meeting, in which students continued to call for changes at the online student paper and in which Campus Press editors offered apologies for any pain that Karson's column caused.

Finally, the Campus Press editors offered their mea culpas to the seething ragists:

"The mistake that I made when I published the article was thinking that my reactions spoke for everyone," Editor-in-Chief Cassie Hewlings, who sat somberly through the meeting, told the crowd. "I am so incredibly sorry. I didn't want to hurt anyone.

"I've learned more this past week than I have my whole 22 years of life."

You're right Cassie. There is no place for free speech--including stupid, misguided (but publicity-seeking) satire--in Boulder, or at CU.

Text of the complete Campus Press apology.

Professor emeritus Peter Michelson excoriates the cult of "offensiveness" that threatens free speech on college campuses (but can't help himself in taking a swipe at conservative media in the process):

In the context of education these are plausible punishments. But the real lesson here is that free speech at CU -- i.e. speech for which one will not be, as the Chinese have it, "re-educated" -- is subject to the literary standards of a not particularly literate chancellor, the offensiveness quotient of a Student Diversity Advisory Board and anonymous "professional journalists of color," and opinion standards of "experienced opinion editors." If these journalists and editors of opinion were to include personnel from, say, The Washington Times, The National Review, and the Fox network as well as the tasteful local media, to say nothing of the Camera's Heath Urie and CU's own PR department, then the standards of vulgarity, mendacity, incompetence and offensiveness should not set the bar beyond the reach of even such a determinedly errant student writer/editor as Max Karson.

But then, how "wrong" was Mr. Karson? If one goes to the Campus Press Web site, one can read his column. Contrary to the chancellor's characterization, it is clearly indicated as opinion and commentary, and it is conspicuously obvious as satire. Further, its satirical context reveals how the presumably professional Camera reporter's description "got it wrong." So why would the dean of the journalism school ignore the evidence before his eyes, precisely what the Campus Press faculty adviser had seen and apparently approved, and take up the chancellor's righteously wrong-headed cudgel?

The real issue here is not whether Mr. Karson's satire is poor or sophomoric. Nor is it an issue of "damage," as the chancellor claimed. Whatever the resolutions of CU's Student Union Legislative Council or the public "upset" for which Dean Voakes felt obliged to apologize, Karson's article could not and has not damaged anyone or thing, including the reputation of the university. The real issue is that the chancellor feared or was told it was "offensive."

Offensiveness is what accounts for how the reporter, the chancellor and the dean took a shot at Kid Karson's epistle and "got it wrong." A cult of offensiveness has developed out of a "feel good' ethos, whereby everybody is supposed to have the right to feel good. Its ideology thrives on college campuses and even extends to the law. Serious legal scholars have proposed that First Amendment rights be measured by the offensiveness quotient of an utterance, that one's right to speak be moderated by whether it offends Mrs. Grundy or the ACLU or the Moral Majority or the Muslim community or the Asian community or Chancellor "Bud" Peterson.

It will never be law, however, because the Supreme Court, no matter how conservative or liberal it might be, will never approve its manifest capriciousness, both as law and social policy. But it can weasel its way into practice if people who should know better, people such as Chancellor Peterson and Dean Voakes, validate "offensiveness" as the arbiter of free speech in university discourse. That is the kind of thing that really does do damage.

So much for diversity of opinion at CU.

CU Campus Press Faces Censorship

From the student government and administration:

University of Colorado student leaders said Monday they want to see more changes at the Campus Press following its decision to publish a pair of racially charged opinion pieces.

John Ali Sharza, director of diversity affairs for CU's student union, said minority groups, concerned students and staff members met Monday to develop an "action plan" for how they want the community and the Campus Press to continue responding to the controversial columns published last week.

"If it's war the Asians want ... It's war they'll get," by Max Karson, ran in the online-only student paper, www.thecampuspress.com, on Feb. 18; and "No hablo Ingles," by Lauren E. Geary, was published the previous day.

Campus Press editors said Monday that they're planning to publish in today's edition the first news story on the backlash from the articles.

"The news piece will be a full dis-closure of the process between the conception and publication for these articles," said editor-in-chief Cassie Hewlings.
. . .
Sharza, though, said some students are concerned that "There's no formal apology on the Web site."

He said students want the Campus Press to apologize and possibly replace top editor Hewlings.

"There might be pressure for her to step down," he said.

Hewlings wouldn't comment Monday on anything except what her online paper plans to publish today.

On Thursday, student editors and their faculty adviser met with Paul Voakes, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, to talk about how to deal with fallout from Karson's column.

In that meeting, the Campus Press agreed to "provide enhanced coverage on the campus controversy the paper has sparked;" establish a Student Diversity Advisory Board, composed of non-journalism majors, to provide editors with regular feedback; adopt an "opinions policy," with standards and procedures for determining the acceptability of opinion columns or reader-generated content; schedule a series of diversity-awareness workshops for the entire staff; and host a series of workshops for opinion writing and editing, to be presented by professional opinion editors.

In other words, using intimidation, kangaroo PC editorial boards, and diversity-awareness reeducation workshops for the the Campus Press staff.

Publish a juvenile editorial attacking President Bush--no problem.

But poorly written satire or editorial opinion that offends protected minority groups?
Censorship--or perhaps more correctly--self-censorship. The apologies, advisory boards, and "workshops" are all designed to intimidate the paper's student editors and staff into thinking and writing "correctly". The professionally outraged activists on campus will argue that they are demanding "sensitivity"--really a demand for a right not to be offended. That right, of course, does not exist. Free speech should be met with more free speech. Don't like an editorial? Criticize.

Leave censorship to the tinpot dictatorships and and small-minded leftist revolutionaries . . . oh nevermind, this is the People's Republic of Boulder, after all.

Maybe they can drag old Ward Churchill out to do a little lecture on free speech. He is an "expert" in offensive, incendiary speech--and will be arguing that in his coming lawsuit. He is on campus every Tuesday night this semester anyway.

Max Karson's Latest Attention Scheme Results In Diversity Training

CU student and self-styled provocateur Max Karson's latest foray into the world of the First Amendment and adolescent attention-mongering has resulted in--you guessed it--mandatory "diversity training" and other politically correct "reeducation". The goal? A more "nuanced" Campus Press staff at CU:

The University of Colorado student newspaper's staff will undergo diversity training and meet other measures outlined Thursday by CU officials in response to a column published earlier this week that said Asian people should be rounded up, "hog-tied" and "forced to eat bad sushi."
. . .
On Thursday, five editors of the Campus Press and faculty advisor Amy Herdy met for 90 minutes with Paul Voakes, dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, to talk about how to deal with fallout from Karson's column.
. . .
He said the Campus Press also will work with Dave Martinez, the school's diversity coordinator, to establish a Student Diversity Advisory Board composed of non-journalism majors who "represent a broad swath of interests on the campus," which will provide editors with regular feedback.

The Campus Press also agreed in the meeting to:

Invite student organizations to meet face-to-face with the editors.

Adopt an "opinions policy," with standards and procedures for determining the acceptability of opinion columns or reader-generated content.

Schedule a series of diversity-awareness workshops for the entire staff with the CU Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, with participation of professional journalists of color.

Host a series of workshops for opinion writing and editing, to be presented by experienced professional opinion editors.

"I'm confident that the current crop of editors has begun to develop a new, more nuanced understanding of the delicate balance between absolute free speech and journalistic social responsibility," Voakes wrote. "I also want to apologize on behalf of the school for the upset that our student publication has created."

Instituting "diversity training" seminars and a kangaroo non-journalism-but-PC-advisory-board are hardly startling, especially for a moonbat liberal campus that can't seem to grasp satire (even if poorly written).

What is disappointing is the dean's necessarily PC notion of trying to "balance" between "absolute free speech" and "journalistic social responsibility". Karson's column--distasteful and perhaps misguided--and the editors' decision to run the piece can and should be criticized. But blurring the line of free speech latitude with cumbersome PC "advisory boards" and the ambiguous "social responsibility" mantra is the true threat in this instance.

Karson is a hack, albeit a dedicated one. CU's damage control went into overdrive (as it has in the past), seeking to deflect or mitigate another potentially damaging story. Where are the Ward Churchill acolytes to support Karson's free speech protections? Or is there (yes there is!) a double-standard? Had Karson targeted white Christian conservative males, there would surely be cries in defense of his rights to push the "boundaries" and challenge the status quo. Instead, he chose Asians as the vehicle for his satire.

Karson may not be funny, but once again the joke is on CU.

The Drunkablog has more background on Karson's previous free speech flaps at CU.

No Prosecution For Max Karson Over Virginia Tech Comments

No prosecution, no apologies:

A University of Colorado student arrested over comments he made in class following the Virginia Tech massacre accepted a deal in Boulder County District Court this morning that will leave his record unscathed if he stays out of trouble for a year.

CU junior Max Karson agreed to a “deferred prosecution” of the charges filed against him after he sparked a First Amendment firestorm in April with controversial comments during a classroom debate about the Virginia Tech shootings.

That means Karson won’t be prosecuted, he isn’t pleading guilty — he doesn’t even have to apologize for his remarks that upset several students — if he stays out of trouble for a year.

“I won’t see you again, right?” prosecutor Rob Shapiro asked Karson at the hearing.

Karson’s response: “Right.”

A victory for free speech, right? No--Karson should be more aware of "potentially" harmful statements:

Boulder County Judge Noel E. Blum said during the hearing that he has few concerns about approving the deferred prosecution, and he doesn’t think Karson will be back before the court.

Still, the judge warned Karson to think about the people he affects with his words, not just whether he’s allowed to speak them.

“This, to me, has more to do with humanity than First Amendment rights,” Blum said. “Part of being an adult means knowing how your actions affect other people. Just because we can do something, doesn’t mean we should.”

Blum challenged Karson to consider being decent and sensitive before engaging in potentially hurtful dialogue.

Did Karson lack tact? Probably. But isn't college about making bold, often offensive statements? Apparently only if you are Ward Churchill.

**Update from comments--Karson interview on 850KOA

CU Student Max Karson Allowed To Return To Class; CU Biologists Threatened

Some of you may remember CU student Max Karson's April comments after the Virginia Tech massacre resulted in his banishment from campus, suspension from school, and a misdemeanor.

He has been allowed to return to campus, but he still faces the charge of "interfering" with staff/faculty/students of an educational institution.

---

Religious nuts, pranksters, or just a hoax?

University of Colorado police are investigating a series of threatening messages and documents e-mailed to and slipped under the door of evolutionary biology labs on the Boulder campus.

The messages included the name of a religious-themed group and addressed the debate between evolution and creationism, CU police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said. Wiesley would not identify the group named because police are still investigating.

"There were no overt threats to anybody specifically by name," Wiesley said. "It basically said anybody who doesn't believe in our religious belief is wrong and should be taken care of."

The first threat was e-mailed to the labs - part of CU's ecology and evolutionary biology department housed in the Ramaley Biology building - on Friday. Wiesley said Monday that morning staff members found envelopes with the threatening documents slipped under the lab doors.

Wiesley said police will have increased patrols in and around CU science buildings.

There are enough of each of the three (nuts, pranksters, hoaxers) in Boulder to make this a real whodunnit.

Student Defends Max Karson, Says Comments Taken Out Of Context

An anonymous student from Max Karson's "Historical and Contemporary Issues of Black Women" class defended the comments he made that led to his arrest last week after the VT massacre:

One student who's in the women's-studies course — who said the class has about 25 women and four men — thinks Karson's comments were taken out of context.

"Max is honest, and people aren't always willing to hear what he has to say," said the student, who didn't want her name published.

She said Tuesday's debate started as an effort to understand how someone could go on a killing spree like the Virginia gunman's.

Karson — who circulates a controversial underground publication called The Yeti on the campus — told his peers that he thinks institutions provoke anger in people, which eventually causes them to "crack," the student said.

"He said, 'Anyone who has walked on this campus and hasn't wanted 30 people dead is lying to themselves,'" she said.

When Karson was asked why institutions make him so mad, the student said Karson used the women's-studies class to illustrate his point: The room was in a basement and had unfinished walls and fluorescent lights.

According to a police report, Karson said: "The basement room with fluorescent lights and the unfinished wall make him angry enough to kill people."

"But I didn't feel threatened," the student said. "He was just theorizing in an intellectual discussion about why people kill."

Police said one of the more-serious comments students reported Karson making that day came as an answer to the question, "Are you going to do something Thursday?"

Karson's reply: "Well, not necessarily this Thursday," according to police.

But the student said that wasn't the end of Karson's statement. She said he added, "Or any other day."

"Generally, Max makes the class uncomfortable, and they disagree with him often," the student said. "But I think people were reacting in fear because 30 people had just died, and they don't want to be one of those people."

This revelation does not immediately exonerate Karson, but certainly contextualizes some of his statements. The case will certainly examine what types of statements constitute enough of a threat to engender fear--and justify the arrest on "interference" charges. If the case is weak, and it looks like it very well could be, then the CUPD arrested Karson for exercising his free speech rights, however off-color or speculative they might be.

Max Karson's Arresting Comments--Overreaction And Censorship Or Sensible Precaution?

CU student Max Karson's ill-timed comments (the question of legality is to be decided, as you will see below) have earned him notoriety, an arrest for "interference", and suspension from school pending his trial:

A University of Colorado student has been arrested after making "threatening" comments in class that seemed sympathetic toward the gunman who killed 32 students at Virginia Tech, authorities said.

Max Karson of Denver was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of interfering with staff, faculty or students of an education institution.
. . .
University police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley said that during a class discussion of the Virginia Tech massacre, Karson "made comments about understanding how someone could kill 32 people."

Several witnesses told investigators Karson said he was "angry about all kinds of things from the fluorescent light bulbs to the unpainted walls, and it made him angry enough to kill people," according to a police report.
. . .
Karson has also produced a video on youtube that ends in a deadly shooting he called a comedy.

The film has been made private since I viewed it; it depicted Karson as a jokester given three minutes to make another guy laugh--he is ultimately unsuccessful, and the other individual shoots him. His site is still up for now. The class, for what its worth, was a women's black studies course.

His father, a University of Denver professor, argues that his son's words, however ill-advised, we're neither illegal nor threatening. The school, in his opinion, has violated his free speech rights. Attorney David Lane, of Ward Churchill fame, suggests that a violation of free speech may have occurred, but his ambiguous statement about killings are questionable, and context is important.

What were Karson's words? There is little detail, other than this purported quote:

"If anyone in here says that they've never been so angry that you wanted to kill 32 people, you're lying," Karson said, according to a statement made by a CU faculty member.

People say stupid things all the time; in the heat of passion, words become weapons. Most people would readily admit that in a particularly angry state they have made some statement along the lines of "I am so angry I could do . . . to that person." But serious contemplation of killing innocent people (not in self-defense)? Highly unlikely. Context is important, as is the state of mind of the person making such a declaration. Karson's intent is clearly in question.

In this case, Karson's words unsurprisingly disturbed his classmates and teacher. His previous record of antagonizing CU's administration and fellow students gives a picture of Karson as an agent provacateur, willing to engage others with (to his mind) alternative points-of-view. My defense of his writings last November (a search of his name yields more on his past).

In light of the events at VT, his statements threw up all the usual red flags, and earned him his arrest and suspension. They may earn him more than just notoriety. They also call attention to the heightened state of emotion following the VT massacre--Karson's words, if made in class just last week, would have perhaps raised eyebrows and snickering from his fellow students. This week, he went to jail.

The debate over how to prevent future Columbines and VT massacres includes the discussion of intervention when "red flags" are apparent. Is the fear justified or is Karson's audience overreacting? Second-guessing becomes the name of the game following any tragedy. One can understand CUPD's desire to protect students and faculty from potential harm. People across the country would be hopping mad if the CUPD heard complaints about Karson and failed to take action.

So which is it? Can we have it both ways--unfettered free speech (unless inciting violence, which is at question here) or the "mask" of safety in charging those with disturbing thoughts and expressions with crimes, so as to prevent larger catastrophes?

Karson has earned himself, rightly or wrongly, a day in court. The context of his statements will be revealed in more detail. Is having disturbing (to others) thoughts a crime? Is he victim of of his own poor judgment and timing? Or has CUPD averted a future massacre? It is doubtful the court decision will render a definitive answer, but the outcome will assuredly lead to more questions on how or if we can avoid yet another Columbine or VT massacre.