The Nevada Sagebrush

ASUN IMMIGRATION FORUM

• When: 7 p.m. Thursday
• Where: Joe Crowley Student Union Ballroom

DIVERSITY/IMMIGRATION SESSION

• When: 7 p.m. Thursday
• Where: William J. Raggio Building, Room 2030

Jim Gilchrist, the founder of an activist group that works for stricter enforcement of immigration laws, has caused uproar at the University of Nevada, Reno before he has even set foot on campus.

Gilchrist is scheduled to be a panelist at Thursday’s Immigration Forum, a discussion organized by the Associated Students of the University of Nevada. A recent letter to university leaders that claims to be from “UNR Faculty, Students and members of the Reno community” demands that ASUN rescind Gilchrist’s invitation to speak because his group promotes “vigilantism, violence and hatred towards immigrants and their supporters.”

Gilchrist’s activist group, known as the Minuteman Project, has been criticized for its support of a similar group that previously stationed armed members at the United States-Mexico border to stop illegal immigrants from crossing.

The letter’s author, Emma Sepulveda Pulvirenti, a foreign languages professor and director of the Latino Research Center at UNR, said she wrote it at the request of a number of her students.

“This was never about free speech; it was about hate speech,” Sepulveda said.

Sepulveda, who teaches two classes that she says are made up entirely of Latino students, said she and her students were shocked to see Gilchrist invited without first consulting the Latino Research Center or other Hispanic leaders on campus.

“I can’t imagine bringing in someone from the KKK without consulting the African American leadership on campus,” she said.

Sepulveda said she is helping to organize an alternative immigration discussion that will ake place in the William J. Raggio Building at the same time as the ASUN Immigration Forum.

Nicholas Blevins, the Flipside contemporary issues chair who organized the event, said Gilchrist’s unique viewpoint was exactly why he was invited to speak on the panel.

“It’s interesting what he says, what he thinks,” Blevins said. “We don’t see people that radical here.”

The entire faculty does not share the views Sepulveda expresses in her letter.

“Hate speech is in the eye of the beholder,” said Elliott Parker, a UNR economics professor and chair of the Faculty Senate, which acts as the official voice for UNR faculty. “I don’t think we can make an exception (to allowing free speech) for speech we don’t like.”

In a response to Sepulveda’s letter, Parker wrote that an “overwhelming majority” of the Faculty Senate does not share her views. He said the university should respect ASUN’s independence and allow Gilchrist to speak.

“This university does not have a hate speech policy,” Parker said. “Once (someone) talks, we do have policies against certain kinds of speech, like harassment. But we don’t want to be in the position of pre-judging what someone will say.”

UNR President Milton Glick said he would not push for ASUN to revoke Gilchrist’s invitation to the event and felt Gilchrist’s participation in the forum is important.

“I can understand people’s objections to him and his views. I myself have objections to him and his views but that’s different from not allowing him to speak,” Glick said. “Our goal here is not to make ideas safe for students but to make students safe for ideas.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada expressed an opinion similar to Glick’s. In a statement, Rebecca Gasca, a public advocate for the group, said that while the university may have the legal authority to pull Gilchrist’s invitation to speak, doing so would go against “the very purpose of the university campus. Toleration and even encouragement of vastly divergent viewpoints should be the hallmark of a great university.”

Blevins said Gilchrist was one of the first people to be invited onto the panel and the only one of the original group of four to remain on it.

Blevins said his original panel had more moderate voices with local perspectives, but when they dropped out, he was forced to find someone he thought could balance out Gilchrist. He chose Miguel Angel Acosta, an immigrants’ rights advocate. Blevins said he has also received e-mails from people who don’t want Acosta to speak, though not to the extent he has against Gilchrist.

Gilchrist said he was not surprised by the public response his scheduled appearance at UNR has generated. He said most of his speaking engagements draw criticism from what he believes is a loosely organized group of “immature, uninformed propagandists.”

“I’d like to know what this hate speech is,” Gilchrist said, referring to the accusations that Sepulveda and others have levied against him. “My message, apparently, is what they do not want disseminated. Everyone should have a right to speak.”

Aaron Benedetti and Jay Balagna can be reached at news@nevadasagebrush.com.

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