December 16, 2008
Dear Students,
It was with great concern that we learned last week that SLCanon on LiveJournal had again become an issue, this time with threats that constitute not only serious campus conduct infractions but also possible criminal actions. The College reported these threats to the Yonkers Police Department. The LiveJournal management itself decided that its own standards were being violated and removed the site.
Sarah Lawrence is a community that places a high value on freedom of speech. However, with this freedom comes great responsibility.
Many of these anonymous posts were offensive, degrading, slanderous, and extremely harmful to the individuals who were the subjects. We are saddened that some members of the Sarah Lawrence community tolerate and perpetuate this kind of language. We urge you to think about how your words affect other people--in this case, in destructive and painful ways.
There are two courses of action should such anonymous posts resurface elsewhere. We encourage any one who feels threatened to come forward and report it. Please call or email
Larry Hoffman, Director of Public Safety, 914-395-2575 / lhoffman@sarahlawrence.edu.
Secondly, the awful invective on any anonymous postings is combated by the Community’s refusal to read it or contribute. We urge you not to spread rumors and misinformation that are posted. Should the identity of the perpetrators involved in illegal or otherwise threatening communications become known, they will be subject, at a minimum, to disciplinary proceedings as set forth in the College’s Community standards.
We are joined by the Office of Student Affairs, General Committee, and the Student Senate in sharing these concerns.
Sincerely,
Karen Lawrence
President
Pauline Watts
Dean of the College
Al Green
Dean of Studies and Student Life
cc: Faculty
Staff
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A few thoughts:
- Karen Lawrence knows about Loranon. I mentioned it to her personally.
- Has she bothered to look it up?
- Isn't the entire point of this site to show that not all anonymity is "offensive, degrading, slanderous"?
- Is the attempt to attach all communication to a name a way to make us accountable as individuals, and not as a community?
- What of the culture of a place that would allow or disallow hate speech? Isn't it our duty to make hate speech socially inacceptable in any forum rather than outlawing the forum?
- Is the "great responsibility" of free speech individual or collective?
- I am disappointed in Karen for her lack of subtlety here. These questions are grave, but so is our self-expression--and it is our own job to police ourselves.
- What do y'all think?
Read on...
Posts
we met around the overhead projecter doing shadow art. you wrote down the time for meerkat day instead of my number on your wrist. we swept the old papers away and prepared our hands to be faces, admired each other's names, then promptly our naughty shadow faces went for each other faster than our faces could. "i knew that was going to happen" you said, but i wondered how. you began thumbing the condensation from your winecup on the projector's glass surface. the little bubbles glistened on the wall. there was only so much water to manipulate. i spat on my corner and sent tentacles of spittle across the glass. you spat on your corner and streaked spirals. soon the wall was full of salivashadows. our spit grew close. "do you have mono?" i asked. "no," he laughed. i bridged the waters. "yours is sticky," i said. "wine" you said. (it's the revelry, really, not the vino, but i did go and search for some and ensnarled myself in sarala, returned with earsful and some white box wine). so i poured a sip into my section, then poured a sip into my mouth. "my friends are leaving" you said and touseled my hair and every inch of my shadow. and there it was. you were gone, transporting the ball to yr court. so. did you lose it? i have a feeling neither of us is very sporty. perhaps it's riding the Bates Hill escalator, while I cradle its pimpled orange shadow in my fingerprints thinking of other dribblings, other slam dunks. cart before horse cart before horse cart before horse cart before horse. line?
where have you been these two and a half long days? are you as into me as your shadow was into my shadow?
sometimes my phone number is essentially meerkat day. i'm trying to reclaim the self i sponged out into Lor. it's tough as nails. we're in each other's bloodstreams she and I, in the green of my armcharm in the fat of my beard. dayeinu.
i can't help but smerick at every line of my imaginary play. your shadow is the star and you are the understudy. and i am a supporting actor for once, a model to absorb your paint and your clay. it's so hard for a builder to wait for the bricks, like Lois Lane waiting for a telegram to beep through time's wires.
This (all this) is the reason that I think I might actually enjoy SLC. I only wish I wasn't so shy and were able to actually go out there and meet you great people, and thus...enjoy this place.