Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Fearing Political Backlash: President of Florida Gulf Coast University Cancels Environmentalist Terry Tempest Williams Appearance

Chronicle of Higher Education
Fearing Political Backlash, President of Florida Gulf Coast U. Disinvites a Campus Speaker
By MICHAEL ARNONE

At Florida Gulf Coast University, the newest storm on the horizon is a Tempest, not a hurricane.

William C. Merwin, the university's president, announced on Wednesday that he was postponing the campus's annual celebration for freshmen out of fear that the invited speaker, Terry Tempest Williams, would turn the event into a political rally against President Bush.

Mr. Merwin told the university's Board of Trustees at its regularly scheduled meeting that he would delay the event, which had been scheduled for October 24, until after the November 2 election. The trustees voted, 10 to 1, to support Mr. Merwin's decision.

In a subsequent interview, Mr. Merwin said he believes that Ms. Williams strongly favors the Democratic Party and that she would have shown her bias in her speech. "How could you have a one-sided blatant political commentary on the eve of an election without balance?" he asked.

Mr. Merwin said he had felt no outside political pressure to make his decision, but affirmed that his concerns did run beyond political balance to the university's balance sheet. He said he understood that the university could face repercussions from donors, lawmakers, and trustees for allowing a partisan speech attacking the president, whose brother is Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, in a swing state just days before the election.

The episode occurred amid controversies at two other public universities where another outspoken liberal and opponent of President Bush -- the filmmaker Michael Moore -- had been scheduled to speak. George Mason University, in Virginia, and California State University at San Marcos both canceled university-supported appearances by Mr. Moore on their campuses.

Ms. Williams, who is the Annie Clark Tanner Fellow in Environmental Studies at the University of Utah and a writer who focuses on environmental and free-speech issues, said on Wednesday that she strongly dislikes many of the policies of President Bush's administration, but that she had not intended to give a partisan speech. Indeed, she said, her goal was to help people overcome partisan contrariness and to better understand one another through civil dialogue.

Alfred J. Wohlpart, chairman of the Florida university's Division of Humanities and Arts, said he and the other organizers of the event had repeatedly told Mr. Merwin that Ms. Williams would not deliver an attack on the president.

Mr. Merwin is "doing what he thinks is in the best interests of the university," Mr. Wohlpart, who is also a professor of English, said on Wednesday. But the president's sudden reversal had left him "completely flabbergasted," the professor said.

The university invited Ms. Williams in May to discuss her ideas and her recent book, The Open Space of Democracy (Orion Society, 2004), which the university's faculty members had chosen as required reading for the freshman class this year.

On Page 17 of the book, Ms. Williams writes: "Since George W. Bush took office as president of the United States I have been sick at heart, unable to stomach or abide by this administration's aggressive policies directed against the environment, education, social services, healthcare, and our civil liberties -- basically, the wholesale destruction of seemingly everything that contributes to a free society except the special interests of big business."

Mr. Merwin cited the passage as undeniably partisan and indicative of what Ms. Williams might be expected to say in her speech. Ms. Williams countered that the surrounding paragraphs show that those were the feelings she had to overcome in order to have fruitful interactions with conservative people.

Although Ms. Williams said she had promised not to make a partisan presentation, she declined Mr. Merwin's request to put that assurance in writing. With that refusal, Mr. Merwin said, he had no choice but to postpone the event.

Mr. Merwin said he had invited Ms. Williams to appear on November 4 instead, but she said she had declined. A new date has not been set.

Ms. Williams said that she is quite upset with the last-minute schedule change and the reason for it. "It's not just a breach of contract," she said, "but a breach of democracy and freedom of speech."

Ms. Williams said that she had returned the university's $5,000 fee and had asked officials there to give the money to students to sponsor a forum on free speech.

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