November 8, 2000
BAMNboozled Continued from Page 1 Luke Massie, a non-student intimately involved with the campus racial preferences group, the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), sent an e-mail to a number of conservative student groups, requesting funds. It read in part: "Does any of you know of any antiaffirmative action individual, student group, foundation, etc. that would be willing to shell out some money for Ward Connerly to come to U of M to debate affirmative action in mid-October?" Receiving no help from the cashstrapped student groups, Massie then contacted the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), a conservative group based in Virginia. At the Oct. 3 meeting, Curtin testified that Connerly had agreed to speak at the University on Oct. 17, and that YAF had agreed to donate $10,000 in funding for that purpose. In addition, Jackson had agreed to come for free. As such, proposed Curtin, MSA should reallocate the $6,000 for Connerly and Jackson back to the general AA102 fund, in effect letting her spend it however she saw fit. The motion failed, and the money went back into MSA’s discretionary fund, to be used for general programs throughout the year. The Truth Ward Connerly was never invited to speak, and YAF never agreed to fund anything. According to a spokesman for Connerly, Massie contacted their office on Sept. 27 and inquired how much he charges for appearances. Massie never invited Connerly to speak, said the spokesman. In addition, even if Massie had invited him, there was no way Connerly could speak, as he books speaking engagements months in advance. Sometime between Sept. 27 and Oct. 3, Massie contacted YAF national headquarters, and spoke to Rick Parsons, a program officer who helps secure conservative speakers for college campuses. According to Parsons, Massie requested help in bringing Connerly to campus on Oct. 17. In addition, "the way he was talking to me suggested he was conservative," said Parsons. Parsons told Massie that the YAF would try to help fund the event and set up the engagement, but he didn’t think there was enough time. Additionally, said Parsons, it was impossible for YAF to give anything larger than $2,000 or $3,000 – nothing near the $7,000 needed to supplement MSA. Finally, Parsons said that the YAF would only support Connerly’s visit if both
THE MICHIGAN REVIEW CAMPUS AFFAIRS MSA and the U-M Administration promised that Connerly would be treated civilly, unlike his March 1998 visit in which he was booed at, shouted at, and treated disrespectfully by any standards. At the Oct. 3 MSA meeting, Curtin told the Assembly that Connerly had accepted the invitation, and that the YAF had agreed to fund it all, even though both statements were false. She then asked for Connerly’s $3,000 to be reapportioned into the general AA102 fund, where it could have been used however Curtin saw
J. Pratt/Review
Luke Massie, no doubt spreading his lies and communist agenda to the bourgeoisie lapdogs. And look, he still needs a haricut. fit. The YAF "never" offered any money toward AA102, let alone $10,000, said Parsons. "I wasn’t even at that point of calling Connerly’s office yet. … For [Curtin] to say that it was set up and that we would give $10,000 was absurd." When contacted by the Michigan Review, Curtin refused to comment. A Tangled Web Of course, Connerly had never been invited, so Curtin and friends had to get out of that agreement somehow. On Oct. 10 – one week before Connerly was "scheduled" to take part in an affirmative action debate – Massie sent another e-mail out to conservative and libertarian U-M groups, with the subject, "Compensating for the Pusillanimity of Your Co-thinkers." "Ward Connerly has developed a ‘scheduling conflict,’" Massie wrote. He continued, in parentheses: "(The fish was THIS BIG. The check is in the mail. The dog ate my homework.)" Massie then requested a conservative debate opponent to argue against "racebased preferences" with U-M Professor Carl Cohen. "In the event of your inability to come up with an opponent of affirmative action who is willing to debate Monday, all campus conservatives will, of course, be collectively, publicly excoriated
for your cowardice," he wrote. Most recipients of this letter took offense to its sarcastic tone. "I was disappointed when I read Mr. Massie’s comments," said Barb Lambert, president of the College Republicans, shortly after receiving the letter. "I recognize that we both favor two very differing viewpoints, but I felt it was disrespectful for Mr. Massie to solicit my assistance in securing a conservative speaker using distasteful and sarcastic comments towards a cause that I believe in strongly." In addition, Lambert felt that it was not her responsibility to pull a speaker out of her hat at the last minute, making up for Curtin’s negligence. "I am happy to work with the opposing side," she said, "but it was unreasonable to request our assistance at the eleventh hour and then hold the conservative cause responsible" for the lack of a speaker. In an interview during AA102 Week, MSA Vice-President Jim Secreto defended the Peace and Justice Commission (P&J). "They did make some effort to get an opposing viewpoint, albeit they didn’t succeed," said Secreto. But what neither Secreto nor anyone else knew at the time was that Connerly had never been invited in the first place, and the "scheduling conflict" Massie spoke of was nothing more than a method by which Curtin and the P&J could feign innocence when Connerly never showed up. A History of Abuse Curtin, a member of the Defend Affirmative Action Party (DAAP), has a long history of using MSA funds for onesided political purposes. In March 1999, MSA approved a $485 allocation from discretionary funds to the Curtin-led P&J for a DAAP-led protest at the office of State Senator David Jaye, an opponent of racial preferences. During the summer of 1999, the MSA
Page 7 abused MSA resources for her own political purposes, producing $489 worth of photocopies – over 17,000 in all – to publicize leftist events. Many have since predicted that Curtin would again twist MSA into a tool for her own political purposes. Shortly after the censure, College Republican Chairman Rory Diamond, then an MSA rep, prophesied, "This will happen again very soon." ‘A Militant, Integrated Civil Rights Movement’ While many predicted that Curtin would misuse MSA funds soon again, no one anticipated the extent to which she would siphon those funds into her cause. Despite the pro-affirmative action slant, MSA gave the program strong support, originally voting to allocate it $11,785 of MSA’s approximately $13,000 in discretionary funds. This would have left MSA with less than $2,000 for the rest of the year. Of the dozens of events that took place during AA102 week, none was conservative in nature. Every event rallied around racial preferences, and called into question the morality of those opposed. "I would have liked to see more antiaffirmative action people show up on campus," said a liberal MSA member who wished to remain anonymous. "The person to ask is Jessica Curtin, and she doesn’t want to talk to you." According to Nolan, who co-proposed the event, a good portion of assembly did not think it would be that one sided. "We had faith that it would at least have a façade of being equal," he said. But "from the start," Nolan conceded, "I was extremely wary." Critics charge that Nolan and MSA should have known better. For years, Jessica Curtin has chaired BAMN, which has been an extremely vocal proponent of affirmative action since its inception in
The YAF "never" offered any money toward AA102, let alone $10,000, said Parsons. "I wasn’t even at that point of calling Connerly’s office yet. … For [Curtin] to say that it was set up and that we would give $10,000 was absurd." authorized $400 for the creation of an activist newsletter to inform students of the various campus political groups. Under Curtin’s editorship, the "Activist Newsletter" illegally urged students to "Run with the Defend Affirmative Action Party in the Michigan Student Assembly Elections – November," a clear advertisement for a partisan party. MSA subsequently censured Curtin and the DAAP. In Sept. 1999, Curtin and the P&J
1996. The BAMN web site, www.bamn.com, is full of propaganda that makes many moderate affirmative action supporters cringe. "Until recently, only the KKK/Nazis were proposing driving immigrants out of the country and dismantling affirmative action," said an April 15, 1997 news bulletin posted on the site. "Now these
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