Painful Protestors

December 8 Editorial

Protests have a long tradition at Oberlin, and it would be a shame to see that change. But judging from the reaction to the demonstrations at Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers’ speech on Monday, the nature of protest at Oberlin has taken a turn for the obnoxious.
Members of the “Larry Summers Welcoming Committee” began by rallying against Summers outside Finney Chapel before the speech began. If only they had left it at that. Instead, they proceeded to disrupt Summers’ speech every few minutes, drowning out his words, heckling him and mercilessly blowing on noisemakers. If the protesters couldn’t tell by the chorus of boos from the rest of the audience that followed their disturbances, their brand of demonstration was not welcome. In a letter to the editor in the Dec.1 issue of the Review, sophomore protesters Chris Thomas and Eve Goodman demanded the chance to speak at the event in order to “present the audience with another perspective so they can decide for themselves whose ideas and whose practice can best advance the interests of people across the world.” What they failed to realize was that it was impossible for the audience members to make up their own minds about Summers; they couldn’t hear him. 
If the goal of protest is to bring about a meaningful dialogue, those who disrupted the speech missed the point. It is safe to say many in the audience would have agreed with the protesters’ views and been interested to hear the statement they prepared. But by the time the question and answer period arrived, the audience was so fed up that the protesters were subjected to heckling themselves and Acting President Clayton Koppes refused to let them finish reading the statement. Many of those in the audience who were undecided, and thus vital for the activists to have delivered their message to, have now been convinced this is not a movement worthy of their support. Meanwhile the protesters put the administration and security in a catch-22: if they were forcibly removed from the premises, it would have created a wider disturbance and inaccurately portrayed the protesters as victims.
The heckling and the noisemakers accomplished nothing but to deprive themselves of the chance to make their views known in an articulate and effective manner. This form of protest was not welcomed by the rest of the Oberlin community. It was ironic to see protesters interrupting Summers and other members of the audience with cries of “Free speech!” when their own free speech was the only speech they were willing to protect.