http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0404-04.htm
Published on Friday, April 4, 2003 by the Boston Globe
Professor, Recruiter Face off at UMass
by Douglas Belkin
In another sign of increasing tensions on college campuses over the war in
Iraq, a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston was arrested
yesterday and charged with assaulting a police officer after he exchanged
heated words with a National Guard recruiter.
Eyewitnesses said the recruiter told adjunct professor Tony Van Der Meer
and a student that they should be shot in the head for their antiwar views.
A Massachusetts National Guard spokesman, Captain Winfield Danielson, said
the Guard is going to look into what happened yesterday at UMass and will
take appropriate action.
The skirmish is the latest in a growing list of incidents in which
simmering tensions about the war have boiled over on high school and
college campuses.
On Wednesday at Wheaton College in Norton, students replaced an upside-down
American flag with a sign citing the First Amendment after they received a
death threat for their antiwar activism.
The day before, in California, administrators at Mater Dei High in Santa
Ana canceled classes, citing concerns for student safety and warning of the
potential for violence at an antiwar rally planned near the school.
At UMass-Boston, spokesman Ed Hayward said the university will review
yesterday's incident and its policy toward recruiters on campus. He said he
knew of no other clashes on campus between antiwar organizations and war
supporters.
The confrontation, which began with activists handing out information on
various causes, disintegrated into a shouting match, with students
screaming at the guardsmen and campus police, eyewitnesses said.
UMass student Tony Naro said the recruiter sparked the dispute by heckling
him as he passed out leaflets to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the
fatal shooting of Martin Luther King Jr.
''He called me a [expletive] communist,'' said Naro, a senior, who was
wearing a black T-shirt with the words ''Education Not Enlistment'' on the
front and ''Military Recruiters off My Campus'' on the back.
The two argued, and campus police were called because someone was
''blocking the guardsmen from handing out informational pamphlets,''
according to the police report.
As the guardsmen packed up their literature and began to leave, Van Der
Meer walked into the lobby. It's unclear what happened next, but a
half-dozen students and Van Der Meer later said that one of the four
guardsmen turned to Naro and the professor and said: ''You should be shot
in the head.''
''No. You should be shot in the head,'' replied Van Der Meer, according to
Shauntell Foster, a senior and a student of Van Der Meer's. Students
Theresa Myrthil and Bethanie Petitfrere said they also watched the
confrontation.
According to the police report, which did not record their words, the men
were screaming at each other, nose-to-nose. An officer stepped between them.
The students said Van Der Meer never raised his hands or threatened the
officer, and that the officer attacked Van Der Meer. In his report, the
officer said Van Der Meer shoved him in the chest and told him to ''get out
of my [expletive] face,'' and then elbowed him in the chest.
Three UMass-Boston police officers tackled Van Der Meer and wrestled him to
the ground, several students said. Meanwhile, students started filing into
the lobby and shouting ''Stop police brutality'' and ''Recruiters off our
campus.''
After his arraignment and not-guilty plea yesterday Van Der Meer, still
wearing the green corduroy jacket that was torn during his arrest, said he
did resist arrest after police accosted him. ''I resisted,'' he said to the
applause of about 30 students who had come to Dorchester District Court to
support him. ''I don't see why I should be assaulted.''
''It's shameful,'' Van Der Meer said. ''It says something about academic
freedom.''
Michael Rosenwald of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Material
from the Associated Press was also used.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company
|