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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 4, 2000)
Wednesday Editor in chief: jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com Public Safety’s Bait and Switch The Emerald reported Mon day that the University’s Department of Public Safe ty has violated Oregon law by purchasing and using vehicles with red and blue lights — a privi lege allowed only to certified po lice officers. Does violating the law make DPS officers safer, as they claim? Maybe. Is it in the best in terests of the campus community, as DPS also claims? Hardly. Are ei ther of those claims a reasonable excuse for a public university to flout the law? Absolutely not. The lights should be removed. Oregon Revised Statute 816.350 is clear on this issue — only police officers’ cars being used for law en forcement may have blue lights. And there is a good reason for this. When the public sees blue lights, they are supposed to be able to as sume that a law enforcement officer is near. This serves an important purpose in society by giving warn ing to lawbreakers that law enforce ment is nearby, and more impor tantly, by identifying an officer who may be able to help in cases of need. Campus security cannot arrest anyone, and they don’t have guns. According to DPS Director Tom Fitzpatrick, campus security can de tain criminals (as can any citizen who sees a crime occurring) and frisk people, but Fitzpatrick made clear that DPS prefers not to have physical contact and would only do so if a situation was threatening. However, DPS vehicles’ red and blue lights could confuse someone needing immediate assistance, and that situation could become danger ous as a result of the mix-up. DPS officers say that the lights make them feel safer and in turn help them make the campus com munity feel safer. We can’t see how. Whether they mean to or not, the lights give campus security more of a tough-guy image in soci ety. Police have the right to use po tentially lethal force to stop crimi nals, and DPS is exploiting this image by using the vehicles. By riding the bulletproof vest tails of actual police officers, cam pus security is appearing to be more serious and more forceful than they are. This can’t be good for community relations — DPS is supposed to be providing the cam pus with a sense of peace. Accord ing to its mission statement, the role of DPS on campus is “provid ing a safe, secure and welcoming environment.” Campus security should be de fusing situations, helping commu nity members who are locked out of their cars and making us all feel safer instead of threatened by their tough-cop image. Will having red and blue lights really make for bet ter relations with students and vis iting parents or football fans? If it does, it will only be out of a mis guided fear that DPS has police power. They don’t have that pow er, and they shouldn’t. What of the money the Universi ty is spending to lease these police cruisers? We realize that DPS needs to replace their aging fleet of patrol vans, and Fitzpatrick said that DPS is getting a good deal, but is leasing the best use of University funds? Why don’t they spend money to improve campus securi ty in a positive fashion, such as adding lighting, placing more emergency boxes, heavily publi cizing their evening safety escorts or starting a peaceful intervention service for intoxicated people on campus, similar to the city of Eu gene’s CAHOOTS service? . There are ways to make our campus safer and more peaceful. Choosing red and blue lights for DPS vehicles only serves to further alienate the community from the officers hired to keep the peace. The Eugene Police Department may not be willing to issue cita tions for this law-breaking behav ior, but we’re willing to cite the best interests of the community. Remove the lights. Undemocratic decision disregards students, workers Guest Commentary Human Rights Alliance University President Dave Frohnmayer bypassed established decision-making processes two weeks ago by joining the Fair La bor Association. Capitalizing on students’ absence over the sum mer, Frohnmayer avoided any offi cial form of faculty or student in volvement. This was an outrageously hypocritical action that disempowers students and en dangers the workers who make University apparel. Last April, after a year of re search and discussion that in volved the entire campus commu nity, the University joined the Worker Rights Consortium. Mem bership in the WRC was approved by a student referendum, an ad ministrative committee, the Uni versity Senate and several Univer sity student organizations. The FLA was approved by one person — President Frohnmayer. Frohnmayer has said that he made an executive decision be cause of the urgency to start moni toring factories and to uphold our code of conduct. Yet he felt no ur gency last year when the four stu dents on the Licensing Code of Lonauct Committee, along with several student leaders, pleaded with Frohnmayer to act quickly. This request was made after the li censing committee, which had met for almost a year, reached a unanimous decision to join the WRC. If the University had joined when students wanted, the Uni versity could have attended the founding conference of the WRC. Frohnmayer, however, said he could not do anything until the University Senate considered membership. This time, students were noti fied of Frohnmayer’s intention to join the FLA the day before the of ficial announcement. ASUO Presi dent Jay Breslow pleaded with Frohnmayer to wait just one week so that students could return and weigh in on this decision. He was flatly refused. Wherever you stand on this is sue, let us be clear on one thing — there is no democracy on this cam pus. Students, faculty, staff and other campus constituencies have a voice only if President Frohn mayer allows it. Perhaps our cur rent dictator is mostly benevolent, but what happens when Frohn mayer is replaced by someone worse? This decision obliterates democ racy on campus, but its real impact will be felt by a largely unseen and often neglected group — the work ers in overseas and domestic sweatshops who make university apparel. Why? Because, despite some insubstantial, vague, and ul timately insufficient changes over the summer, the FLA is still pro tecting corporations rights, not workers’ rights. The way the FLA is cur rently set up, companies choose which of their facto ries are monitored, and when. In many cases, factory managers are in the same room with workers when they speak to monitors. Un der the FLA Charter, it could be possible for a company to have less than 30 percent of its factories monitored and still earn the privilege of the FLA’s sweat-free tags in its entire product line. Well meaning consumers will think their purchase helps workers; instead they will only perpetuate the situation. University membership in the FLA actually hurts work ers instead of helping them. Despite what President Frohnmayer says, which monitoring body the Univer sity associates with is a cru cial decision — as crucial as which person you choose to vote for in the upcoming elections. Common sense does not dictate acting against moral and ethical principles. Don’t be fooled - these issues are important. They affect you and the people your age (or younger) who make the products you buy. The question is, do you care? Please contact the HRA in the Survival Cen ter (346-4356) or e-mail phlwoods@glad stone.uoregon.edu with comments/questions. Speaking out against stereotypes is not a choice Guest Commentary Cris Cullman I was one of the administrators who called and talked to Becky Mer chant , advertising manager of the Emerald, about my disappointment and anger that the Emerald chose to run a Yahoo! ad campaign that was both offensive and sexist, as well as homophobic. To my surprise, Ms. Merchant vol unteered that she also found the ads to be sexist and offensive, that there was a review process she could have used to reconsider the ads and she had chosen not to use it. She told me that “the students here did not seem bothered by the ads. ” And so she did not speak up. Perhaps one of the things she was worried about was that “the students” might think she was being “too PC.” Is there an at mosphere at the ODE that convinces staff they might be ostracized if they speak up? Ms. Merchant’s behavior stands in contrast to the actions of Erica Fuller, director of the Multicultural Center, a person new to this campus who could have remained silent and yet chose respond to what she and others found to be demeaning and dangerous. Fuller wrote a guest commentary that helped readers think about the ads in terms of their effects on all members of the cam pus community. To put this matter in a different context, I believe it is not appropri ate for me, as a white person, to do or say whatever I want without thinking about how it might affect a person whose skin is not the color of mine; that is, if I hold to the prin cipie mat i ao not want to con tribute to racism and discrimina tion based on skin color. Nor is it sufficient for me to claim to have “a black friend,” for instance, who will tell me if I get out of line. For me, taking responsibility for the privi lege I enjoy as a white person means to think about and realize how my actions affect others, particularly those who do not enjoy the pre sumptions of innocence, worthi ness and competence I often get au tomatically just because of the way I look. I did not just land on the plan et and I am capable of thinking about my actions in context. When the editor of the Emerald says, in his written response, that he is “quite comfortable with the belief that no one at the Emerald, in any department, endorses rape or ho mophobia,” he implies that they have no responsibility for con tributing to an atmosphere where those things are more likely to be condoned. And yet, in running this ad series the Emerald basically said to the campus community, “We don’t have to care about how this af fects you, particularly if you are ‘too sensitive’ because you have been the victim of sexual violence. As long as the others are silent, then they must think these ads are OK. You don’t count because they are not complaining.” We have many examples of geno cide, racial profiling and other hate crimes continuing while the majori ty stayed safely silent. It is past time that we learned to think before we act and to consider how others be sides ourselves are affected both by our actions and by our silence. . Cris Cullinan is an officer of administration in the University’s human resources de partment.
