www.minutemanproject.com\/immigration-topics\/Reconsidered.asp<\/a>)<\/p>\n\u201cHe points out that the Minuteman Project itself is a multiracial and multiethnic group with African-Americans and Hispanics in positions of leadership,\u201d Mr. Thomas reports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have individuals who have immigrated here legally from countries like Cuba, Mexico, and Peru who help Jim,\u201d says Robin Hvidston, a college-educated mother and housewife who is Gilchrist\u2019s national rally organizer. \u201cIt is not a matter of race. It is a matter of upholding laws.\u201d<\/p>\n
One has to wonder where Ms. Sepulveda has been doing her \u201cresearch\u201d — and whether her character assassination is underwritten by Nevada\u2019s taxpayers. (Or is this merely a tactic to silence the opposition, by assuring any who oppose her that they\u2019ll stand accused of murder?)<\/p>\n
Mr. Gilchrist holds a B.A. in newspaper journalism from the University of Rhode Island, a B.S. in business administration from California State Polytechnic University, and an MBA in taxation from Golden Gate University. He is a former newspaper reporter and a retired California Certified Public Accountant.<\/p>\n
On April 1, 2005, Mr. Gilchrist came to public attention when he and his followers set up camp in the desert south of Tombstone, Ariz., to draw attention to the problem of uncontrolled illegal immigration from Mexico into the United States. \u201cI knew if I could create the largest gathering of Minutemen since the Revolutionary War that it would have an impact on the issue,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
During the next 35 days, more than 1,000 people from around the country participated in the controversial event, fanning out along a 24-mile stretch of the international border to look for and report undocumented immigrants slipping into the country.<\/p>\n
The Minutemen neither shot anyone nor carried out any \u201ccitizens arrests.\u201d But the gathering sparked a media frenzy, drew a charge of vigilantism from President Bush, and probably did more than any other single event to push immigration reform to the center of the American political stage, Mr. Thomas of Orange Coast magazine reports.<\/p>\n
To counter Mr. Gilchrist\u2019s scheduled UNR appearance, Ms. Sepulveda, her \u201cLatino Research Center,\u201d and the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada will sponsor their own immigration discussion and \u201ccultural celebration\u201d from 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 19 at the William J. Raggio Building.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t specify which culture they\u2019ll be celebrating. Why do I think it won\u2019t be the mainstream American culture into which most immigrants used to wish to assimilate?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to silence somebody just because they have an opposite view,\u201d Ms. Sepulveda told the Gazette-Journal. \u201cI support free speech, but …\u201d<\/p>\n
(You knew there\u2019d be a \u201cbut,\u201d right?)<\/p>\n
\u201c… but I think hate speech has no place on our campus or any other campus,\u201d Ms. Sepulveda concluded.<\/p>\n
In fact, it would be hard to conceive of anything more pernicious and disingenuous than pretending to defend the right to \u201cfee speech,\u201d when it turns out what you really mean is \u201cbut students shouldn\u2019t be allowed to hear any speech that I consider \u2018hateful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
If college is good for anything, it should be a place where students are exposed to points of view which they may previously have considered to be strange, alien, unfamiliar, or wrong.<\/p>\n
Harvard University retracted its invitation last month for Mr. Gilchrist to be on a panel discussion on immigration after some students whined that they didn\u2019t wish to be exposed to his views.<\/p>\n
In bold contrast, UNR President Milton Glick said last week he might not like what Gilchrist has to say, but \u201ca university should be a place for the open exchange of ideas and a bastion of free speech. … Our goal isn\u2019t to make ideas safe for students but to make students safe for ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally — an academic voice that Nevadans can be proud of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, is one of two panelists scheduled to appear at a Nov. 19 forum sponsored by Flipside Productions, an enterprise of the Associated Students of the University of Nevada, Reno. The other panelist is Miguel Acosta, a member of an immigrant rights organization in New Mexico. Nicolas Blevins, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech","category-immigration"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pWqFl-5Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":373,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}