University President Morton O. Schapiro spoke with members of Secular Humanists for Inquiry and FreeThought on Wednesday in a fireside planned months ago.
Schapiro said the group’s chalking of the Prophet Muhammad on Sunday night was a “mistake” but was protected under the First Amendment.
“If you had talked to me before, I would have said, ‘Please don’t do that,'” he said. “There’s a better way to get honest dialogue here. But you did it, you had the right to do it, and you deserve to be protected. But I think it was a mistake.”
Muslims on campus are vulnerable and the drawings were hurtful, Schapiro said. He has met with Muslim students throughout the year and they are a “beleaguered” and “battered” group, he said.
Schapiro was invited to speak with SHIFT following comments he made in a fireside chat at Sheil Catholic Center in February. At the fireside, Schapiro, who is Jewish, said religion is an important part of his life. Harry Noble, SHIFT’s events coordinator, said Schapiro’s February comments “brought into question the role of faith on campus, and we wanted to discuss that with him.”
The open event, which Schapiro said was his 49th meeting with undergraduates this year, was held in Shepard Residential College and was not intended to address the group’s chalkings of Muhammad, SHIFT members said. About 15 students attended the event. The first 40 minutes of conversation focused on how religion affects Schapiro’s role as president and the purpose of interfaith dialogue.
Schapiro said there was no reason for SHIFT members to feel excluded by his comments at Sheil, where he said people who have faith have something in common and should be together as allies.
“If you’re talking about what brings us together, there’s a lot of things that bring us together,” he said. “A love of the (New York) Mets brings me together with a lot of other people. … It doesn’t mean that I exclude people. I think human nature is to look for bonds.”
In his previous position as president of Williams College, Schapiro said he faced the question of free speech in 2007 when a student posted a flyer promoting Hitler’s birthday after she was offended by Holocaust Remembrance Day posters.
Though he said he found the student’s flyers “reprehensible,” Schapiro said they were protected under the First Amendment because they did not target Jewish students and therefore did not constitute verbal assault. SHIFT’s chalkings also did not specifically target Muslim students because they were placed at random.
Schapiro said he had received many e-mails regarding SHIFT’s chalking, some accusing him of protecting the group because he did not understand the offense. He said his response to the Hitler posters suggested otherwise.
Schapiro also said he had once erased an offensive, sexually explicit chalking and caption by an LGBT group at Williams. That chalking was outside a church on a block traveled by children, he said, and other similar chalkings inside campus were not erased.
He said SHIFT’s drawings were not productive and questioned whether the group would ever be able to engage the Muslim-cultural Students Association in a dialogue again.
William Banis, vice president for student affairs, said some Muslim students speaking with the University do not want to engage SHIFT in a conversation currently, and SHIFT President Cassy Byrne said McSA had denied a request to attend a Sunday meeting discussing the chalkings.
“At this point, I don’t see how SHIFT’s forum will provide for that fair and balanced dialogue,” McSA co-President Noreen Nasir said. “That’s not to say we’re closed to discussion, but once we have some time … we will hope to open the doors for conversation in the future.”
McSA invited SHIFT to a general meeting Thursday on forgiveness and tolerance in Islam, which Byrne said SHIFT members plan to attend. The topic and event were planned before SHIFT’s actions this week, Nasir said. The Medill junior said she hoped SHIFT members would come “with an open mind.”
Schapiro said many people who had contacted him questioned SHIFT’s decision to chalk the image of Muhammad on the ground rather than on posters. Byrne said Sunday the group was aware of those concerns. SHIFT made an effort to put the drawings in low-traffic areas on campus, she said. After a discussion about a possible poster censorship on campus during Thursday’s event, some SHIFT members said if they were allowed to put posters up, they “probably” would have done so.
According to a Division of Student Affairs brochure titled “Campus Publicity Policies and Procedures,” students are not required to have poster content approved in designated flyering areas provided the student group is registered. SHIFT was recognized by ASG this quarter. In Norris University Center, posters must be stamped at the information desk, but the pamphlet notes the stamping is for posting purposes only, and “does not signify approval of content.”
Byrne said she did not regret the chalking. One SHIFT member, Will Feinberg, said he had a roommate in McSA who was hurt by the drawings.
“Personally, I think that we went a little bit far,” the Weinberg sophomore said. “But you know, what’s done is done.”
