NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin Students gather in front of
Kerckhoff Hall on Friday to protest an advertisement that ran in
the Daily Bruin on April 18.
By Mason Stockstill
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
About 30 students rallied in Meyerhoff Park Friday to protest an
advertisement published last month in the Daily Bruin, which they
described as “hateful misinformation.”
As about a dozen Bruin staff and editors watched, protesters
called for the paper to print a retraction and apology for the
ad.
“We met with the Daily Bruin staff a number of times,
trying to get an apology or equal space or something,” said
LeAnn Quinn, a fourth-year psychology student and member of the
Coalition for the Fair Representation of Women. “But we were
thwarted.”
The advertisement, which ran April 18, featured 10 “common
feminist myths” and called on students to report instances of
professors using those myths to the Independent Women’s
Forum, the group that paid for the advertisement.
“These are the concepts and ideas that have limited, even
today, the occupations and abilities of women to express
themselves,” said Christie Scott, a fourth-year women’s
studies and American literature and culture student.
Scott said the ad violated guidelines for advertisements in
Student Media publications as established by the Associated
Students of UCLA Communications Board, The Bruin’s parent
organization.
A flyer distributed at the protest pointed out specific portions
of the ad that activists say violated the guidelines. For example,
the guidelines state that any advertisement that “stereotypes
… persons of a particular gender” should not be accepted
for publication.
Protesters said the ad’s statement that “males are
greater risk-takers, females are more nurturing” is the kind
of stereotype that should have kept it from being published.
But Daily Bruin Editor in Chief Christine Byrd said protesters
were interpreting the guidelines differently than The Bruin does on
a day-to-day basis.
“If you look at the policy very literally, we almost
couldn’t run any ads, and that’s not the way we
interpret that policy day in and day out,” Byrd said, adding
there will be no retraction or apology for the advertisement.
Byrd said that she understands how protesters could interpret
the guidelines in such a way as to make the advertisement ““
which she approved ““ a violation of those guidelines. As a
result, Byrd said, The Bruin’s advertising policies are being
discussed and could be rewritten to more accurately reflect their
day-to-day implementation.
Timothy Kudo, next year’s editor in chief, said he hopes
to work with community members and the paper’s senior
editorial staff to consider formulating new advertising
policies.
Kudo also said controversies surrounding this ad and others in
recent months have forced a reconsideration of the usually
inviolable line drawn at The Bruin and other newspapers between
advertising and editorial content.
“Because they can have such effects on our credibility,
they inevitably become something the editorial staff does have to
deal with, and we can’t really avoid crossing the
line,” he said. “We’re being pushed, as
journalists, into a really tricky area.”
Both protesters and Bruin staffers made repeated reference to
another ad, titled “Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery
is a Bad Idea ““ and Racist Too,” that conservative
columnist David Horowitz placed in UC Berkeley’s Daily
Californian on Feb. 28. After a furor erupted, the Daily Cal
printed a front-page apology for publishing the ad.
When Horowitz submitted the ad to The Bruin, Byrd consulted with
Media Director Arvli Ward and Business Manager Guy Levy, and they
decided to reject the ad.
Ward said the media coverage surrounding the Daily Cal’s
decision had turned the ad into a controversy The Bruin wanted to
avoid.
“We do run controversial ads ““ not all controversial
ads,” Ward said. “We make decisions case by case. If
they are controversial, that does not disqualify them.”
But that argument has made some Bruin staffers question the
paper’s consistency.
“It’s true that at the time, the Horowitz ad was
causing a lot of commotion and tension at campuses across the
nation, but I don’t think that’s an excuse for us to
let something so anti-woman through,” said Jonah Lalas, The
Bruin’s Viewpoint editor.
Ward said it is the editor in chief who has ultimate
responsibility for all content in the paper.
Despite what protesters at Friday’s rally say, Kate
Kennedy, campus projects manager for IWF, said the ad doesn’t
stereotype women.
“We seek to disprove many of the statistics and hyperboles
out there on these issues,” Kennedy said in phone
interview.
One such statistic is the commonly cited assertion that one out
of every four college women have been or will be victims of rape.
Both Kennedy and the advertisement said this statistic, which has
been used by the Department of Justice and the American Medical
Association, is a myth.
“We don’t try to detract from the serious nature of
domestic violence or date rape. We try to provide a logical
perspective,” she said. “Isn’t it a good thing
that fewer than one in four women will be raped?”
Kennedy said the IWF, which is one of the nation’s most
prominent conservative women’s groups, sent the advertisement
to four other college newspapers for publication. The Columbia
Spectator rejected the ad, while the Harvard Crimson wanted changes
made and was not satisfied with the ad by the time its school year
ended. The Daily Bruin, the Dartmouth Review and the Yale Daily
News all published the ad.
“This is kind of a test run to see what kind of reaction
we get to this ad. We plan a larger campaign in the fall,”
Kennedy said.
But Quinn, who spoke at the rally Friday, said this is exactly
the kind of thing protesters are hoping to combat.
“They’re trying to infiltrate campuses with their
lies and myths,” she said.
With reports from Barbara Ortutay and Linh Tat, Daily Bruin
Senior Staff.