Courtland Milloy, author of the controversial Washington Post column that offended students, alumni and faculty of Howard University, and prompted the Howard University Student Association (HUSA) to stage a rally to the Washington Post, was on campus yesterday to hold an open forum with students in an effort to clear the air.
The forum was open to all students and was sponsored by the Department of Journalism in the John H. Johnson School of Communications. Phillip Dixon, chairman of the department, offered the forum as a "brown bag learning session" for the room of mostly print and broadcast journalism students.
Though the forum was meant to offer insight into the world of journalism, the following discussion between Milloy and the students centered mostly on the controversy the columnist caused.
In the Oct. 30 column, Milloy claimed students protested President George Bush's visit to campus because they were missing out on "Soul Food Thursday."
In the same column, Milloy went on to say, "Howard is not some hotbed of political activism. The biggest event of the year is Homecoming, which features two fashion shows, a step show and lots of hip-hop celebrities."
Before allowing Milloy to address the crowd, Dixon told students to "ask whatever's on your mind," to which Milloy said "I don't have any ground rules for you, I encourage you all to lay it on me."
With that, Milloy addressed his first question from the audience, which was why he decided to write the original column that began the conflict. Although he admitted to never being present at the protest against President Bush's visit to campus, Milloy did explain the origin of the evidence used to support what he wrote and defended himself from the criticism it caused.
Milloy said the day after the protest, he received an email from a parent who said her son, a Howard student, was upset because he could not eat in Blackburn on the day of Bush's visit. After reading the email, Milloy said he read that day's Hilltop and looked into recent activism on campus to come to his conclusion, which was the Oct. 30 column. "I don't sit down and say 'I'm going to write something to upset the students,'" he said.
Milloy said that he has written positive stories about the University in the past and couldn't understand why those things never conveyed such strong reactions.
"This particular column struck a nerve. I don't necessarily predict the effect that anything I write will have," he said.
As a result of the original piece, Milloy received a number of emails from students and alumni with angry reactions to the column. Howard University president, H. Patrick Swygert wrote a response in which he stated, "it is quite ironic that even in the face of the student protest that ensued, Mr. Milloy would seek to characterize Howard University as a politically indifferent party school. Further, to suggest that the driving motivation behind the student protest was to 'break through campus security to get to the cordoned-off cafeteria' was both inaccurate and a misrepresentation."
On Nov. 2, the same day HUSA organized a rally to the Washington Post to demand an apology, Milloy wrote in response to the angry letters and emails.
"Then I heard that the entrance to the school cafeteria had been closed off -- on Soul Food Thursday, no less. If you really want me to believe that missing a pop quiz in calculus was more upsetting than missing out on a fried chicken platter, then show me a bunch of skinny and smart black students when I visit your school," Milloy wrote, further angering students and alumni.
After discussing his reasoning behind writing the columns, Milloy was questioned on his intent, to which he had no real answer. "I don't know what to say about the point, I was writing something and it came out," Milloy said. "I don't know my intent."
Despite the strong reactions to the column, it was evident that a number of students had no issues with Milloy's message, since many said they agreed with Milloy's column. However, when addressing Milloy, it was evident that the issue was in Milloy's use of words and the medium used to address his opinion. Students especially had an issue with Milloy's reference to fried chicken and collard greens.
"The first column was to attack Bush but then he choose to attack Howard by talking about fried chicken," said senior broadcast journalism major, Aspen Steib. Steib drew a strong reaction from the room when asking Milloy about his intent, adding that as a black journalist, Milloy should have used another avenue to address his discontent with Howard. "In a gatekeeper position he is in, we can't keep attacking each other. The forum he chose was inappropriate," she said.
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Friday, November 11th 2005 at 11:35AM
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