Another attempt to defend the A-T

I haven't been posting things from the discussion list, but I was driven to post this. A person from the journalism department posted a letter this morning asking why there wasn't more outrage on campus when a non-student was arrested, cited, and fined for marijuana possession. I am not quite sure I get the parallel. I guess we were supposed to be upset that the university police did their job because the victim was black. Apparently, he sees this as differential applications of justice.

I don't see this at all and most of the responses on the list pointed this out. Even if this were an outrage (which it is clearly not), it doesn't lessen the hostile attitude of the A-T's April Fools Issue.


Here is the letter:

Last week many colleagues used this forum to register their opinions about the April Fool’s issue of the Advance-Titan. I am writing to bring to your attention an item that appeared in a different issue of the A-T, an article that appears to have gone largely unnoticed even though it seems to me to say a lot about campus climate.

In its March 29 issue, the A-T reported the following (based on a police report):

March 14, 2007. (1:15 a.m.)--During a routine building check, an officer detected the odor of burning candles and incense coming from a guest room in the North Gruenhagen Conference Center, in violation of university fire regulations. The female guest was contacted and identified herself as a Philadelphia resident who was performing in the “Voices of Africa Choral and Percussion Ensemble.” She consented to a search of the room where candles and incense were found. The officer noticed her trying to conceal something in a suitcase. The officer seized a cosmetic case containing a marijuana joint and roaches weighing 2.2 grams. The female admitted it was her marijuana but denied smoking it in the room. Nonstudent Regina Contave (sic), 46, was cited for possession of marijuana.

As you may know, Ms. Cantave (the proper spelling of her name) belongs to a group that was a guest on this campus in January 2005 for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. dinner. She performs under the name of Akusua Nyo Agyiriwah, and she was back in the area last month because Voices of Africa was performing for Neenah school students as part of the group’s mission to foster multicultural awareness and understanding.

Without question the officer was doing his or her duty to protect the lives and property of the university community. Asking Ms. Cantave to extinguish any candles or incense was completely appropriate. But the officer should have stopped there. Searching the room was an unnecessary intrusion.

I encourage you to read the police report carefully and apply your powers of critical analysis. How credible is it that a person with illegal substances in her possession “consented” to a search of her room? If that person had consented to a search, why would she then try “to conceal something in a suitcase”? For those of you who have lived in urban areas, how likely is it that you would allow a police officer into your bedroom in the middle of the night absent subterfuge or threat?

I’m sure the rejoinder from the UP would be that the officer had an obligation to investigate a crime. But officers have great discretion in how they choose to enforce the law (if they didn’t we would all have speeding or jaywalking tickets for what we do on Algoma Boulevard). The fact is they exercise their discretion according to the parameters that are established by those in their chain of command.

What message do you think that Ms. Cantave took away from her encounter with the UP? That UW Oshkosh values an environment that is “inclusive” and “tolerant”? Let’s not forget that her offense was not a crime, in a narrow legal sense. Possession is a civil offense and in the scheme of things not a lot more serious than driving a few miles an hour over the speed limit. But it cost her $375 and spoke volumes about how welcome people like her are on our campus.

I invite you to reflect on the difference in our reaction to this incident and to the April Fool’s edition of the A-T.

As part of that reflection, I urge you to consider the difference in agency, on the one hand a uniformed (and armed) employee of this institution who is paid to carry out its mission and support its values and on the other hand students, who pay us to be formed and instructed in the value of knowledge and inquiry.

We appear to be far more tolerant of the actions of people invested with formal authority than the ones who are here for an education.