speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

Taking Sides
Seattle's death, she replied: "Basically, I don't know what he said—but I
do know that the Native American people lived this philosophy, and
that's what is important." Knowing that the speech was apocryphal,
organisers of the 1992 Earth Day celebration nevertheless performed it
after checking with some Indians. New York Times A1 (April 21, 1992).
51 Carter (1990); Gates (1991). Rennard Strickland, a distinguished American
Indian law professor, wrote the foreword to the 1990 reissue of the
1976 book.
52 Leon Higginbotham (1992), the most senior black judge on the U.S. Court
of Appeals, wrote a scathing open letter to Thomas after his confirmation,
which elicited thousands of requests for reprints, as well as support from
other prominent black legal academics like Lani Guinier of the University
of Pennsylvania and Derrick Bell of New York University. Los Angeles
Times M (February 14, 1992).
53 Katt Shea's "Poison Ivy" infuriated most of the audience at the Seattle
International Festival of Women Directors. At New York's Museum of
Modern Art two months later "half the audience thought it should be seen
and talked about . . . the rest found it beneath consideration." Shea
commented:
I've been called a male-basher and a female-basher. At a screening,
one woman said to me, "How could you, as a woman, write a
character like Ivy?" At that point I was really into saying, "You can't
censor art to be the way you want it depicted. Because pretty soon no
one can be bad. There can't be bad men. There can't be bad black
people.
New York Times s.2 p. 13 (May 3, 1992).
54 Research on the possible biological basis of homosexuality, for instance.
The prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science reported
that the structure connecting the left and right brain hemispheres, which
is larger in women then men, is larger still among homosexuals. A
spokesperson for the Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington welcomed
the finding: "This study supports our belief that nature created us
just the way we are and that there is no reason to fix anything because
nothing is broken." Gorski & Allen (1992); Los Angeles Times B1 (August
1, 1992). A t-shirt declaring "It's a brain thing" quickly became popular
in the West Hollywood gay community. But some gay activists are
reluctant to stress such scientific findings, fearing they may be disproved.
And they do little to influence the religious right. Los Angeles Times B1
(August 12, 1992).
The National Institutes of Health withdrew support for a conference on
"Genetic Factors in Crime: Findings, Uses and Implications" under attack
from black scholars and the Congressional Black Caucus. The deputy
director for extramural funding criticised the conference brochure for
touting "genetic research as offering the prospect of identifying individuals
who may be predisposed to certain kinds of conduct." "The N.I.H.
cannot condone the unjustified leap to the conclusion that there is a
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