Mass censorship at UC SanDiego

In response to a shut down of all student media at UC San Diego a Facebook group has been formed- 

Tell AS: Mass Censorship is NOT the Answer

The Facebok position statement follows.

In response to the recent string of racist events at UC San Diego, AS President Utsav Gupta, has recently put a moratorium on ALL media organizations.

What this means is that all 33 media organizations cannot have access to any of the funds they need to publish Spring Quarter. The hard work of hundreds of students is being denied because of the actions of a few.

Tell AS: mass censorship is not the answer. Punishing 33 organizations for the actions of one is neither fair nor productive. Media organizations on this campus represent a wide range of students, interests and opinions. They are a diverse set of publications that allow students to express their thoughts, opinions and creativity. Silencing this creative outlet WILL NOT solve the problems of racism, inequality and bigotry. If anything, it takes away outlets through which students can express their outrage at these problems.

You cannot promote diversity by eliminating creativity. You cannot solve racism by censoring the student voice.

The Associated Student president issued the following statement-

Friday, February 19, 2010

Dear UC San Diego,

Last night, a deeply offensive and hurtful program was aired on Student Run Television (SRTV), a service of the Associated Students. The content of this program does not represent the views of the Associated Students, and was aired by KoalaTV, the television show put on by the student organization The Koala. We condemn the actions of The Koala, its program and its content.

The Koala was not properly authorized to display content on SRTV. We are in the process of determining how the program was aired. In the meantime, as authorized by the ASUCSD Standing Rules, I have revoked the SRTV Charter for review. We will only open it again when we can be sure that such hateful content can never be aired again on our student funded TV station.

Alongside this initiative, I have frozen all student media organization funding. The Koala has long since been a controversial publication at UC San Diego and is primarily funded by our student fees. I do not believe we should continue funding this organization with our fees.

We must develop effective policies to ensure that our fees do not go to the support the hateful speech that targets members of our community. I ask that those media organizations that did nothing wrong and are unfairly affected to be patient until we can resolve this situation.

To this end, I have charged a campus-wide committee to review the funding of student media. This committee is open to every member of the UC San Diego community – faculty, staff, students, and whoever else feels strongly about this issue. The information about this the committee shall be posted to as.ucsd.edu in the next few days, or you may email me directly at aspresident@ucsd.edu if you’d like to obtain future email updates.

The Associated Students stands in solidarity with those affected by last night’s program, and we remain committed to being the voice for all UC San Diego students.

Utsav Gupta
Associated Students President

The Foundation for Indivudal Rights in Education has issued a statement highly critical of the shutting down of student media at UCSD

Click here for San Diego non-student coverage of the situation.

The dankprofessor wants to make it clear that the racial comments made by some UC students associated with the student media are dastardly.  Events at UCSD mocking Black History Month are also deeply offensive.  However, shutting down student media is deeply repugnant to the ethos of university life.  This is not Iran, people.  This is also not the deep south of the 1940s.  UCSD should deal with this in the context of a discourse characterized by civility, not censorship.

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