We are your megaphone. This is the newspaper for everyone, for the entire community. No matter what.

This was one of the first messages that I was taught after joining The Hoot, and four year’s after our publication’s creation, I think it is still the most important message of all.

The Hoot is not, nor has it ever been, a filter of opinion, or a place where only a few get to present their thoughts on politics, campus events, or just the world in general. From the beginning, the philosophy at this newspaper has been that if a member of the Brandeis community feels strongly enough about an issue to commit words to paper, those words deserved to be in our pages. This was the promise of The Hoot: a space for everybody, an outlet for each of us.

I am extremely proud that The Hoot has always been a place where people with a variety of political and social views come together and feel comfortable. Within our pages, it is easy to find the staunchest conservatives sharing a page with the most radical of socialists. We have had Republicans, Democrats, and Libertarians who have all earned the title of…

A demonstration was held on the Great Lawn yesterday by about 85 students citing a number of grievances related to students’ rights. The demonstration, organized to coincide with Open House, lasted an hour.

After five minutes of silence, individual students spoke on a variety of issues, including the pending appeals of suspended TYP student Mamoon Darwish, the way in which the administration handled the case regarding Prof. Donald Hindley and the arrest last weekend of two students after a party in the Mods.

For the duration of the demonstration, students stood with raised fists, holding signs with statements such as “bring the justice back to Brandeis,” “violations of our rights,” and “due process for Mamoon.” Some covered their faces with scarves or ski masks.

A printed statement disseminated beforehand via e-mail and then at the event read “the demonstration today is in regards to an ongoing situation at Brandeis University. We are asking the student body to carefully consider these things: the removal of Palestinian Art, Nadia Kim, Gravity Magazine, Jimmy Carter, Donald Hindley, and Mamoon Darwish and consider the implications of the way the Administration and the student body has responded.”

“There’s a systemic problem on campus, where the…

In recent weeks, the Student Union and Student Events have been examining the success of Student Events’ first semester of financial independence. SE and the Union are also discussing the potential for Student Events collaborating with the Union in the future, according to Union officials and the Student Events Executive Board.

Last semester, Vice President of Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy accepted a SE proposal allowing the organization direct access to 17 percent of the Student Activities Fee, with input from the Department of Student Activities. This removed the necessity of Student Events going before the Finance Board to receive funding.

“We’ve been really happy with [the new system], in terms of financial structure,” said SE Co-Director Lauren Barish ’08. “It made internal finances much easier. It cuts out the middleman. It’s a lot more direct.”

SE Director of Finance Ben Gordon ’08 added that “we haven’t been to F-board once, and the quality of the entertainment, the quality of the food at events, and the overall quality has increased. I think the $32 [students] give to the Student Events Fee, they can see that a lot better now.”

One of SE’s problems was that the F-board’s system of allocating…

Intimately connected with freedom of speech is another concept: the freedom to peaceably assemble. Similarly protected by the First Amendment, this right’s aim, at least on some level, is ensuring that criticism of the government remains part of the public discourse. It institutionalizes the citizenry’s ability to hold the federal government publicly accountable for its actions.

While it sounds nice in theory, the application of this principle is infinitely harder, and is further complicated when the setting changes from America in general to the Brandeis campus. What restrictions, if any, apply to students who are protesting while on campus? What is their responsibility for maintaining a safe learning environment, despite the naturally disruptive nature of a protest? Is this responsibility lessened by a legitimate grievance?

Hanging over all of this is the legacy of the 1969 takeover of Ford Hall and Brandeis’ commitment to social justice, indelible parts of the university’s identity, and the fact that Rights & Responsibilities does address protests, while not addressing any other facet of speech other than harassment.

What do we want? Our money! When do we want it? Now!

Last semester Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy accepted a proposal from Student…

There’s usually little talking done in a library. In the spring of 2006, though, speech in a library became a big issue, and not because loud voices were preventing students from getting their studying done.

Created as an art project for the Coexistence and Conflict course “The Arts of Building Peace,” an exhibit entitled “Voices of Palestine” was displayed for four days before being removed by the university administration. The exhibit depicted artwork made by Palestinian children that included some provocative images, including a map of Israel with a snake wrapped around it, and was removed following student complaints.

While the controversy surrounding Gravity Magazine sparked a discussion regarding offensive speech and its relationship to race, the controversy around Voices of Palestine was connected to a different topic: Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

What is the university’s responsibility to facilitate dialogue regarding these topics? What is its responsibility to ensure that the large Jewish population on campus has a comfortable living environment? Ultimately, does a level of discomfort on the part of certain students necessitate the removal of the offending material?

Politics: the partisan realm

These topics of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict are consistently prevalent on campus, for obvious reasons.…

Hey all! This is Pat Garofalo with The Brandeis Hoot, courtside for the first round NCAA Tournament matchup between Brandeis and Lasell! The teams are warming up, and we’ll be providing live updates all the way through the final whistle.

Four minutes to tip, and the Judges were just roundly booed by the Lasell crowd.

Starting for Brandeis: Terrel Hollins, Joe Coppens, Kwame Graves-Fulgham, Stephen Hill, Kevin Olson

Starting for Lasell: Brad Caravoulas, Jamie Crawford, Jose Guitian Jr., Corey Godfrey, Dwayne Powell

Judges win the tip, and we’re off!

Olson hits a three to start the scoring. Lasell answers with a big dunk. 3-2 ‘Deis

Two straight buckets for Lasell, two straight missed layups for the Judges. 6-3 Lasell

Brandeis is having a hard time hitting shots, with two more misses. 8-3 Lasell

Hollins hits a layup to stop the bleeding. 8-5 Lasell

‘Deis on a nice little run, with Coppens hitting a jumper. Lasell going cold from outside. 11-8 Brandeis

All square, after a three from Lasell. 11-11

After a bad start, the Judges are figuring out their defense. A big steal and a layup from Coppens make it 15-11 Brandeis.

The Lasell shooters have gone very cold. Magee…

Speech encompasses much more than spoken words. According to Supreme Court rulings, everything from artwork to profanity written on the back of a jacket can be considered speech, and thus constitutionally protected. Most importantly, for free speech purposes, the written word is equal to the spoken.

When Gravity Magazine printed a satirical ad entitled “BlackJerry” in Spring ’07, the article could technically be considered speech. However, having established that, a host of other issues arose, such as offensive writing versus satire, and the right to publication versus the right to live in a comfortable and diverse environment.

Where are the lines when it comes to satirical writing and its potential to offend? In the wake of Gravity, it is still unclear, and there are no mechanisms in place to ensure that the Gravity incident isn’t repeated once the parties involved graduate.

If discussions take place and no one hears them…

“It just completely blew me away how much people were offended by it,” said Ben Douglas ’08, former Editor in Chief of Gravity Magazine. “You could tell there was a seeming consensus that this went over the line and a lot of people were hurt.”

Douglas acknowledged that the ad probably…

In theory, free speech is a simple concept. The First Amendment covers it in ten words: Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.

If only it were that easy.

Over the last five years, Brandeis has been host to a series of incidents and controversies, and while free speech was not the driving force behind any, it is a common thread connecting them all.

These cases occurred in different venues across the university, from the closing of the “Voices of Palestine” exhibit to allegations of racist remarks in Prof. Donald Hindley’s classroom; from the debate over whether to allow a presentation by President Jimmy Carter to an offensive joke printed in Gravity magazine; and from the Justice’s Dusty Baker incident to The Hoot’s decision to print a poem entitled “I Hate You Thugs.”

In all of these instances, students, administrators and faculty questioned who has the right to say what, and when and where they have the right to say it.

Of course, any series of incidents raises the question: Why does this keep cropping up? Is it a trend particular to Brandeis or to the university setting in general? Or is it that the current Brandeis generation…

According to the Union Chief of Elections, Neal Ludevig ’08 won Tuesday’s election for Justice of the Union Judiciary, while the election for Senator for Off-Campus students will continue because technical difficulties prevented write-in votes in the initial primary round.

Instead of the scheduled final round, Tuesday was a second primary in the race for Off-Campus Senator.

According to Chief of Elections Nelson Rutrick, the final round between Michelle Blanter ’10 and Nathan Goldstein ’09 will be held in the next few days.

Goldstein waged a successful write-in campaign on Tuesday to qualify for the final.

“Final elections will be held in the next day or two, depending on the Union Judiciary decision about when it can be held,” said Rutrick, who is designated Chief of Elections due to his position as Student Union Secretary.

“[The UJ] has to approve any change to the election timeframe,” he added.

In the race for Justice of the UJ, Ludevig defeated Danielle Shmuely ’10. Of the 525 votes case, 251 went to Ludevig, while 226 went to Shmuely, a difference of less than five percentage points. 48 voters, nine percent of the total, voted to abstain.

During the election for Justice of the…

Imagine the headlines: “Super Bowl winning coach suspended,” “Perfect Pats slammed by league,” and of course, “19-0*.”

Thankfully, it won’t come to that.

By upending the previously undefeated Patriots and completing one of the most improbable and entertaining playoff runs in recent memory, the New York Giants ensured that we have a Super Bowl champion who legitimately won the game and the games leading up to it.

Going undefeated is such a rare accomplishment that the team achieving it should be free of scandal, and the Patriots are anything but. They were caught cheating early this season, in the infamous “Spygate” incident, and now allegations have been made that they filmed the St. Louis Rams’ final practice before Super Bowl XXXVI, which the Pats won despite being 14- point underdogs. The NFL, and Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector, are investigating the Pats’ cheating habit, and there’s a chance that Bill Belichick will be serving a suspension at the beginning of next season.

These are not the kind of stories the public wants or deserves to be hearing in the wake of an historic season. Look to baseball for an example. The career home run record has been rendered meaningless by the…