Women's groups demand apology from Bruin for ad
RALLY: Editor says paper doesn't keep unpopular views out of publication
By Scott B. Wong
Daily Bruin Staff
Women's rights groups on campus will hold a rally Friday against an ad placed in the April 18 issue of the Daily Bruin by the Independent Women's Forum.
The ad listed the "Ten Most Common Feminist Myths," including arguments that rape statistics, salary disparities between men and women and empowerment through women's studies departments have been inaccurately depicted.
Members of the UCLA Clothesline Project plan to converge with the Coalition for the Fair Representation of Women in Meyerhoff Park at noon Friday to demand The Bruin apologize for and retract the ad.
"We want them to retract the publishing of this ad," said Christie Scott, executive co-chair of the Clothesline Project. "We do want an apology, but most of all we want this not to happen again."
Daily Bruin Editor in Chief Christine Byrd said The Bruin is not in the habit of shutting unpopular opinions out of the paper.
She said the paper is not responsible for checking the veracity of ads. "We run ads for weight-loss products, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we endorse them," she said. "I really expect intelligent people across campus to see the ad for what it is."
Scott said after Clothesline leaders met with representatives from The Bruin and voiced concerns about the ad two weeks after it ran, no action was taken by the paper.
"(The ad) was basically justified through a free-speech argument," Scott said. "I feel that's somewhat cowardly." According to Guy Levy, assistant director of business for The Bruin, the paper's policy is to keep a "wide-open gate" in running advertisements.
"We do a disservice to our community by narrowing that gate," he said. "The positive side of this is that there is healthy, open debate of free expression and the meeting of minds."
But Scott said the ad's language was hateful and damaging to the UCLA community.
"This isn't going to lead to open discussion," she said. "It's so violent in nature and is presented in such a hostile way."
Kate Kennedy, IWF campus projects manager, said IWF is the "counter-organization" to the National Organization for Women.
"What we see time and again is the lack of truth on college campuses and faulty statistics that we feel creates a certain form of national hysteria on campuses," she said.
According to the ad, one "common feminist myth" is that "one in four women has been the victim of rape or attempted rape."
Tina Oakland, director of the UCLA Center for Women and Men, said both the American Medical Association and the FBI have quoted the one-in-four rape statistic on their Web sites.
"These are not known, radical, feminist organizations, but are mainstream government agencies," Oakland said. "There is no slicker way to run a campaign of misinformation than to attack well-documented facts by casting them as biased opinions."
Byrd said it's been painful to know that women's groups are upset with the paper. "We pay attention in everything from Sports to Viewpoint in covering women's issues," she said. "I get more letters from people who think the Daily Bruin is biased against men."
Byrd said The Bruin received only two Viewpoint submissions criticizing the ad and the paper's decision to publish it.
"If they had written more into Viewpoint, they could have made a really strong message," she said. "Viewpoint is better read than the ads." Levy said the IWF paid $1,116 for the full-page ad, titled "Take Back the Campus! Combat the Radical Feminist Assault on the Truth" - the regular price for a full-page ad by advertisers outside the university. Clothesline members requested The Bruin offer them a free full-page ad to respond to IWF's.
Levy said the UCLA Clothesline Project is entitled to equal space if it wants to purchase an ad. A full-page ad at the university rate would cost $776. "We offered that they buy space or write a Viewpoint submission," he said.
On March 1, UC Berkeley's Daily Californian issued an apology and retraction for an advertisement placed in the previous day's edition by David Horowitz called "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery is a Bad Idea and Racist Too." "The full-page ad ... was not condoned by the Senior Editorial Board, but we realize that the ad allowed the Daily Cal to become an inadvertent vehicle for bigotry," states the apology.
Members of the Clothesline Project are demanding Byrd follow in Cal's footsteps.
"They want to take back the campus to what?" Scott said. "The 1800s? To when there weren't any women faculty?"
But Byrd has repeatedly said she believes the ad was published within the scope of the paper's policies and would not retract the IWF ad.
At the time Horowitz's ad reached the Daily Bruin - the 47th college newspaper to which it had been offered - Byrd made the decision in consultation with Student Media Director Arvli Ward to reject it.
Ward could not be reached for comment.
Scott said she believes the IWF ad was just as detrimental as the Horowitz ad. "(The Bruin) made a choice not to print the Horowitz ad because they were accountable to student concern," Scott said.
But in a letter to Horowitz, Byrd stated that the ad did not run because it was already controversial and "quite storied."
"It was bigger than just the ad by the time it reached us," Byrd said. "It was a national issue."
Had The Bruin been the first newspaper offered the Horowitz ad, Byrd said, it probably would have run.
According to Byrd, at the time of publication, the IWF ad did not have a history and was not inciting as much controversy as was the Horowitz ad. Oakland, who has sat on the Associated Students of UCLA Communications Board, which publishes The Bruin, said the paper can choose what it wishes to run. "The Daily Bruin is an award-winning paper with a proud tradition of journalistic integrity and can afford to be selective about the information - and in this case misinformation * contained in its ads," she said.
NICOLE MILLER/Daily Bruin