Ryan ChartrandI love the month of February. I mean it’s a really fun month considering we have: the Super Bowl (Feb. 4), Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14), Mardi Gras (Feb. 20), and National Engineers Week (18-24). Oh yes, and of course, who could forget, it’s also Black History Month.
Since it is Black History Month, the Cal Poly College Republicans (CPCR) have decided to bring back Mason Weaver, a black intellectual, author, speaker, and proud Republican on Feb 21. Unfortunately, the last time Mason came to our beloved campus, an incident occurred that caused national headlines. (It’s now story time.)
Not so long ago (November 2002), a former member of the CPCR, Steve Hinkle, attempted to post a flier in the Multicultural Center (MC). The flier contained the title of the book “It’s OK to Leave the Plantation,” the name and picture of the author (Weaver), and the time and place for a speech by Weaver. When Hinkle went into the MC to post the fliers, some students inside found the flier to be offensive. They asked Hinkle to leave, and threatened to call the police. After trying to discuss the flier with the students, Hinkle left peacefully. However, one student did call the police, who were informed that a suspicious white male was passing out racially offensive material.
So far, it seems like a little misunderstanding, and with a little discussion from both sides, the situation could have been resolved. Unfortunately, the Cal Poly administration decided to charge Hinkle with “disruption of a campus event” (although, no event was going on at the time, hmm.). Now, I doubt many of you have gone into a hearing with Cal Poly Judicial Affairs, so let me explain how it works. Several Cal Poly administrators act as judge, jury and prosecutor. And as a student, you aren’t allowed an attorney.
During the course of the seven-hour hearing, our current and most beloved (please don’t hurt me) Cornel Morten, vice president of Student Affairs, made reference to the fact that Hinkle is a white male (blonde hair and blue eyes), a member of the Cal Poly College Republicans, and that his flier created a “collision of experiences,” which has “racial implications.”
Of course, this hearing had nothing to do with disrupting a meeting, but rather, it was an anti-white male, anti-republican, “I like to abuse power” type of event. In fact, when Hinkle asked what the definition of “disruption” was during his hearing, the director of Judicial Affairs responded that she couldn’t see the relevancy of that question. (I would think that when you charge someone with ‘disrupting’ something, the definition is slightly relevant, but, then again, I am just a lowly columnist.) Later, she attempted to answer, but joked saying, “Gosh, I feel like I am on ‘Jeopardy’.”
If you really want to read the entire transcript of the event, you can go to www.thefire.org/index.php/article/4970.html. It’s actually a humorous read.
Anyways, Hinkle was found guilty, and as punishment was to write two letters of apology and attend “therapy” (you know, to get rid of his “racist” attitudes), but instead he decided to get legal help. After repeatedly attempting to get Cal Poly to drop the charges (since it had no case), Hinkle’s legal team decided to take the case to court. At this point, the university finally settled and dropped the charges. Oh yeah, and it had to pay $40,000 of Hinkle’s legal fees (that’s a lot).
Just think, the university could have given out 10,666.66 Lucy’s Juice smoothies to us students with that money. But alas, it was wasted by our administration, which was trying to be politically correct, anti-white, and anti-republican. But hey, I still love you guys, I mean, without them we wouldn’t have the plentiful parking spaces, well-lit paths, uncrowded gym, and wonderfully tasty and inexpensive food, that we all truly enjoy.
Oh, and if you were wondering what the enigmatic and mysterious president of our university was doing the entire time, well, he was doing nothing. However, for his actions, President Warren Baker won the coveted Sheldon award (2003), an annual award given out by reporter John Leo of U.S. News & World Report “to the university president who does the most to look the other way when free speech is under assault on campus.” When Weaver returns this month, I hope the Cal Poly administration won’t try to abuse its power.
Brian Eller is a materials engineering junior and Mustang Daily political columnist.