As a staff, there are a few select things we would wish to never have to cover: the death of a classmate, a terrorist attack or the rape of a classmate.
The other topic that falls in this category, a bigoted attack on minorities, happened on March 1 when an unnamed person or persons created racist fliers and distributed them on cars on University lots.
This happened here at UW-Oshkosh and at St. Norbert College between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. March 1. The fliers depicted negative racial caricatures and promulgated white power.
We had hoped, as a society, that we were all past this archaic fallacy: that a preordained group, white people, is better than all other races.
Apparently this type of ignorance still survives in small pockets in the state of Wisconsin, and this ignorance has perpetuated still more ignorance.
The latter ignorance, that claims although we may not like what was on the fliers we can do nothing to the perpetrator(s) who placed them because it is their right to free speech, needs to be squashed.
The reason this ignorance needs to be combated is that St. Norbert College supposedly found out the identity of the man who placed racist fliers onto cars on its campus and has decided not to press charges of any kind other than ordering the man to stay off campus, according to a tmj.com story.
Because of this gross injustice let us break this problem up into easily digestible cans and cannots.
One does have the freedom to speak about anything he or she wishes, unless it is deemed to violate the fighting words doctrine.
However, one does not have the right to place printed speech onto someone else’s car.
What’s the difference? It’s simple; the moment you place something onto someone else’s car, you have crossed the line of the public sphere into the private. Cars are possessions and therefore can’t be treated like public places or property.
And to all of the people on message boards saying what happened March 1 was OK by the First Amendment you are grossly incorrect. Please stop spreading ignorance about the law so as to make actions like this seem harmless.
Handing out literature on the street is legal because when you hand a piece of paper to someone, their consent is implied when they take the document. However, when you place something on someone’s car you are implying the consent, which is illegal.
We can’t go to your house and throw trash on your lawn, we can’t put stickers on your bike, just like you can’t put racist literature onto someone else’s car.
St. Norbert’s failure to recognize this difference is deplorable. Instead of prosecuting the individual for placing despicable literature onto people’s property, the college, through its lack of action, has virtually said, “We could care less about doing what is right and just.”
As a student newspaper we are all about free speech and the First Amendment, but using that freedom as a mask to do something illegal to spread racist filth is not in the spirit of the amendment.
We as a newspaper are calling out to St. Norbert, as well as UW-Oshkosh: if anyone catches the perpetrator, help to prosecute the person(s) responsible for placing this horrible literature onto cars to the fullest and most imaginative extent of the law.
Cite the persons with trespassing, littering and graffiti and give them the harshest sentence possible for what they have done.
UW-Oshkosh Police Chief Michael Melland was on point when he said the person(s) who did this awful deed were “gutless” for not attaching their name(s) to the flier.
It is clear that the person(s) involved in this were afraid of retribution for what they did, and if that is indeed so, then what they should receive is the harshest retribution possible.
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