Thursday, February 18, 1999
Ads spark apology response
USAC: Council concludes that Campus Events run retraction,
attend sensitivity workshops
By Barbara Ortutay
Daily Bruin Staff
Two controversial ads placed in the Daily Bruin by the Campus
Events Commission led the Undergraduate Students Association
Council (USAC) to re-evaluate its guidelines regarding paid
advertisements.
After nearly an hour of discussion at Tuesday’s council meeting,
USAC decided not to create guidelines for future ads. Instead,
officers passed a motion to place a half-page ad in The Bruin in
response to the advertisements, and to require Campus Events
advertising staff to undergo a sensitivity workshop.
"Dealing with guidelines is a sticky situation when it comes to
freedom of speech," said USAC President Stacy Lee at the
meeting.
"Council is ultimately responsible for the use of funds and its
name, and while we don’t want to step on people’s toes, it’s also
our responsibility to address this issue," she added.
The ads, placed in The Bruin three weeks ago to promote Campus
Events movie screenings, have since been on USAC’s agenda at every
meeting.
The advertisement that offended most council members depicted
the 12-year-old protagonist of the movie "Welcome to the
Dollhouse," with the words "rape me" superimposed on her
forehead.
The other advertisement, for the film "Happiness," showed two
dolls in a sexual position on a bed.
Campus Events Commissioner Charles Ku continued to stand by his
position that he entrusted his advertising director, Christine
Buckhout, to use her discretion with the content of advertisements,
and thus, was only "indirectly responsible" for the ads in
question.
"We received no calls in our office about the ads, so people
were not overtly offended," Ku said. "If they were and they didn’t
call, that’s another question."
"This whole motion has passed the matter of my own
responsibility – now it’s about USAC formally apologizing to the
whole student body," he added.
The designer of the ads, Henry Lopez, a third-year design
student, saw them as representing his own artistic freedom,
according to Ku.
Buckhout said she did not see the need for having several
hundred dollars come out of the Campus Events budget to pay for an
apology responding to advertisements most students were not aware
of in the first place.
"We received no complaints," she said. She added that the
sensitivity workshops also only concerned a limited number of
advertising staff members.
Unlike most USAC decisions, which are usually passed
unanimously, Tuesday’s motion had council members divided, with
three voting against it and one abstaining.
Ku, General Representative John Strelow and Community Service
Commissioner Joe Balabis voted against the motion. Ku was
especially opposed to having funds for the apology ads come from
his budget.
To many council members who found the ads offensive, a crucial
issue was the fact that USAC funds, which come from mandatory
student fees, were used to pay for them.
"It wasn’t up to the commission to use the funds the way they
wanted to," said External Vice President Liz Geyer.
"The ads went against our standards as a council," Lee said. "It
is against our standards to put out an image of a young woman, or
any woman, with ‘rape me’ written on her forehead."
But Ku disagreed with placing an apology ad in The Bruin.
"We are using student fees again to pay for an apology ad, for
something that a small minority of people in my office are involved
in," Ku said.
The initial motion to place an ad in The Bruin stating USAC’s
position on the ads in question was later amended to include the
sensitivity workshop, and to have Campus Events pay for half of the
ad, with the other half coming from USAC contingency funds.
The council tabled the discussion of the details of the
resolution, and of the sensitivity training, to next week’s
meeting.
"I think this is getting old," Ku said. "Also, what about the
Daily Bruin, where are their censors? If someone decided to put an
ad in The Bruina with donkeys and naked women, they would just run
it."
According to Editor in Chief Adam Yamaguchi, there is an
unwritten policy prohibiting the use of obscene material as
advertisements in The Bruin. Guy Levy, The Bruin’s business
manager, said that the ad had been submitted to him initially, but
that he had requested changes be made in the advertisement before
it was run. Levy never saw the ads again before they were
printed.
Geyer said the workshops were necessary because some staff
members were not aware of the underlying implications of the
ads.
"Women’s rights and women’s issues get mixed into everything
else," she said.
"We take it for granted at this university, and I think the
workshop would address this."
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