Seeking civil engagement for uncivil situations

This is my Sunday, May 1, column in The Gazette. I haven't shared the newspaper column on the blog for awhile.

Plenty of Iowans are weighing in on the controversy surrounding the University of Iowa professor who dropped the F-bomb in an e-mail to College Republicans a few weeks ago, as well as the terminology the Republican students used in an initial e-mail that evoked the response. Surely, you've read about this.

A student has filed a complaint against the professor and people are making pitches to gain your favorable opinion, put down someone with whom they disagree or simply score some political points. UI officials are to determine whether or not the punitive action being sought by virtue of the complaint is warranted.

The UI also is investigating a complaint that someone lobbed the N-word at African-American students outside the UI's Hillcrest Residence Hall last month. Internet message boards are all over that incident, too.

But the passion groups and individuals on a national scale seem to be all over the e-mail flap in greater numbers than for the racial slur incident. That's sad. Words can cause an individual to wonder how welcome he or she is in a place. People in that kind of position - and I'd consider African-Americans in a city that is 7 percent African-American who are called the N-word to be in that position - deserve support like that being expressed in the e-mail controversy.

Apples and oranges, some of you say. The point in one incident, that argument goes, is that an educated professor used a university-supported system - an e-mail account - to lob a vulgarity at a student group.

But the Hillcrest Residence Hall is a university-supported system, too, and we expect people there to be educated at some level, even if not near the doctoral level. Words delivered in a negative manner have impact, regardless of the medium, and the word students reported in that incident also is vulgar.

UI President Sally Mason tied both incidents together in a guest opinion The Gazette published last Sunday, April 24. Other Iowa newspapers also published her piece. Mason noted how the incidents tarnished the UI, whose core values include embracing diversity and respect, and said this type of behavior should not exist at the university. UI Vice President for Student Life Tom Rocklin issued a statement after the racial slur report saying, among other things, that the UI is committed to having an atmosphere in which everyone has inherent worth and dignity.

Chuck Green, assistant vice president and director of the UI Department of Public Safety, said late last week his department's investigation into the racial incident has not turned up who said the slur. “We'll respond to anything that's actionable,” Green said. A student delivering a slur in a hostile manner could be found in violation of the UI's student code of conduct. David Grady, the UI dean of students, said Friday an investigation into that continues.

I've read the comments on websites about both the e-mail and racial slur. They include defenses of free speech and, indeed, a full airing of opinion about what happened is an important follow-up to each episode. We want The Gazette to be a place that welcomes comment on such public matters.

Comments on some websites have been disturbing, though, revealing attitudes those involved fear exist. So how about these for goals for these uncivil incidents: civil discourse, openness to what words mean to others and dignity for individuals involved?

Those would be for everyone in the debate.