The Syracuse University administration and the Team Against Bias called representatives from the College Republicans to a meeting Wednesday, following its sponsorship of Ann Coulter’s speech on campus.

Junior acting major Anna Hadingham, a member of the Student Environmental Action Coalition, said the meeting was in response to 35 bias-related incident reports the Coulter speech generated. SEAC distributed blank incident forms for students to complete outside of Goldstein Auditorium during Coulter’s speech on March 8.

Senior Jessie Kerr-Vanderslice, also a SEAC member, said T.A.B. instructed students to not talk about the meeting to anyone, specifically The Daily Orange.

The confidentiality of the meeting was to ‘create a safe space so that people could feel comfortable saying what they wanted to say,’ Kerr-Vanderslice said.

Juanita Perez Williams, director of Judicial Affairs and chair of T.A.B., did not return phone calls made to her office.

Senior Tiffany Damick, the former chair of the College Republicans, said following the speech, Judicial Affairs spoke to a member of the College Republicans about concerns with the content. Damick classified the discussion as very informal, without any specific outcome.

‘If it weren’t for us, there wouldn’t be any conservative voices on campus,’ she said.

Leading up to Coulter’s speech, SEAC and the Muslim Student Association asked Chancellor Nancy Cantor to cancel the appearance, according to Hadingham and Kerr-Vanderslice.

‘We asked them to re-evaluate the choice to let her come based on her comments and writings,’ Hadingham said. She called Coulter’s comments racist, sexist and homophobic.

‘We felt (her appearance) violated certain non-discrimination policies,’ Kerr-Vanderslice said.

The complaint resulted in a letter from Dean of Students Anastasia Urtz that stated the administration ‘supported students coming out to express their views.’

Damick said she received an e-mailed letter from the chancellor supporting the right of the College Republicans to bring Coulter to campus. The chancellor’s office declined to provide a copy of the letter because it said the letter came from Urtz.

When asked if the letter stated the administration supported the right to bring Coulter to campus, Urtz responded, ‘No, that’s not what the letter said.’

Damick said she no longer had a copy of the letter because it was deleted from her e-mail account. She could not be reached later to confirm the letter from Urtz.

Hadingham and Damick both said the meeting resulted in a dialogue between the groups.

‘They accused us of supporting racism, homophobia and everything else (bad) on campus,’ Damick said.

Hadingham and Kerr-Vanderslice declined to comment on what was discussed inside the meeting, citing the directive from T.A.B.

Hadingham and Damick differed on who was present at the meeting. Damick said only students were present with no administrators, while Hadingham said there were ‘loads of them’ in attendance. Kerr-Vanderslice declined to say if anyone was or wasn’t present.

Both Hadingham and Damick agreed that nothing concrete resulted.

‘It was the most unproductive thing ever,’ Damick said.

Damick said she was frustrated at the resistance the Coulter speech provoked, as it is the group’s only event all year.

Published on March 30, 2006 at 12:00 pm