Nancy Cantor waited inside the meeting room, pacing. To the hundreds of students, faculty and national media in attendance, this would mark her crowning moment. All the personal attacks Cantor endured throughout the past year, all the resistance, would pay off in moments, when they would tally the votes and end this silly controversy.

Finally, the University of Illinois’ Board of Trustees appeared ready to retire its controversial American Indian mascot, Chief Illiniwek. But Cantor, a symbol of the Chief resistance, looked less like a victor and more like a nervous wreck. Stirring, agitated, anxious – and wagging her finger at student trustee Nate Allen.

Cantor stood there, telling Allen what everyone else would soon learn – the resolution that once appeared certain to pass suddenly lost support. The Chief would stay.

Few people knew that as of yet, and the meeting opened with 40 minutes of public comment as planned. Realizing the resolution lacked the necessary approval, the trustee who proposed the measure withdrew it. Chaos ensued. Pro and anti-Chief factions started shouting. Protesters rushed the front of the hallway, displaying a banner: ‘Racist Legacy Continues!’ Amid the commotion, Cantor stormed out.

Daily Illini editor Matt Stensland followed Cantor outside into the hallway, where she stood in front of a window. He knew she acted emotionally with these issues. He saw it before, in a private meeting. But now they were in public. Was this really happening?

Stensland stepped closer. Nancy Cantor was crying.

‘At that moment, she wasn’t the chancellor of a university,’ Stensland said. ‘She was a human being who felt something.’

Deep-seeded within Cantor lays a drive. Throughout her career, Cantor’s platform prioritized diversity and defending marginalized groups. At Syracuse, it has often come at the expense of free speech, protecting the targets before the speakers.

Sometimes Cantor inserts herself into these debates in spite of herself, inciting the kind of division that has plagued her here since her Oct. 20 decision to disband the student-run station formerly known as HillTV.

This is Cantor’s dilemma – placing her values on those who may not share them. Still, Cantor remains undeterred in her quest. At times, her drive wins her acclaim. As provost, Cantor helped mount Michigan’s defense of affirmative action in the late ’90s, quickly earning recognition as a rising star in academia.

At Illinois, it brought her ridicule. They warned Cantor to avoid the Chief conflict, and for two years, she obliged. But when anti-Chief efforts lagged, Cantor acted, becoming a symbol of the anti-Chief faction and pitting the community against her. Ultimately, it drove her out of town.

‘If you (and the university community) don’t share the same values, it’s hard to remain and be effective,’ says Cantor’s husband, sociology professor Steve Brechin. ‘It was a shame.’

Cantor made her HillTV decision to quell tensions and defend students offended by the ‘Over the Hill’ episodes. But in the days following her decision – and the hours leading up to it – a backlash occurred, one that changed the scope of the argument and the culture of free speech at SU.

‘The environment on this campus is as divided and contentious as any time in my 37 years, since the events surrounding Chancellor (John) Corballey and the great division of American universities of the 1970s,’ says Bob McClure, SU professor and critic of Cantor, referring to the events surrounding the Vietnam War and Kent State shootings.

‘The divisions and passions now are not as high as they were then,’ McClure says. ‘But they are more focused on the leadership of the chancellor now than they were then.’

***

Associate Chancellor Jo Thomas scanned The Daily Orange on Oct. 18, shocked to see the front-page story detailing HillTV’s show ‘Over the Hill.’ Racist, homophobic, sexist – Thomas couldn’t believe it. One segment made light of lynching. Another suggested buying black friends fried chicken and O.J. Simpson’s leather glove for Kwanzaa.

Angered, Thomas called Cantor, attending a trustee event in Washington, D.C.

‘She needed to see this as quickly as she could,’ Thomas says.

Cantor returned to Syracuse the next night and organized meetings for the following day. The campus climate had already grown contentious enough. At Wednesday night’s forum in the Schine Underground, professors shouted at students, people advocated violence and many attendees shed tears.

Many clips insulted Cantor personally – and nearly every minority group at SU. Anyone who knew Cantor would expect her to react emotionally. Cantor reached her decision within hours, after meeting with Thomas, Senior Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs Barry Wells and Dean of Students Anastasia Urtz.

They discussed numerous options, everything from disbanding the station to letting the Student Association exclusively handle it, Wells says.

‘It would have been much easier,’ Thomas says, ‘and a lot of other presidents would have done it, to just hand the situation over to the Student Association.’

Not Cantor. She operated differently – almost always hands-on, especially when a crisis threatened marginalized groups. At Michigan, she worked with friend and colleague Patricia Gurin to organize the social sciences data UM used in its defense. As the cases moved through the courts, Illinois hired Cantor as its first female chancellor. But she never left the defense. So embedded was Cantor that she remained in touch with UM lawyers even after she left. When the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on April 1, 2003, Cantor, then at Illinois, attended with the Michigan contingent.

‘She cares very much about fairness and inequality,’ Gurin says. ‘Nancy has a very deep concern about how democracy can survive when we have very deep divides in our society.’

In public, Cantor’s elaborate speeches discuss the value of diversity. She strikes a passionate – though ultimately an academic – tone.

In private, many have seen Cantor’s passions boil over. During a meeting just prior to disbanding HillTV, Newhouse deans and faculty saw Cantor fluctuate between professional and passionate.

‘When you share ideas of that nature,’ Newhouse Diversity Coordinator Max Patino says, ‘you have no option but to get emotional.’

Cantor reacted with similar fire at Illinois after an anti-Semitic letter to the editor ran in The Daily Illini, titled ‘Jews manipulate America.’

… Jewish ability to promote their desires, disguised, as being in the interest of the American people, one day will evaporate. Then the Jews might face another Holocaust. The Jews must be mad. The United States has given them a foundation for unprecedented world-wide influence and power …

In response, Cantor called a meeting with five Daily Illini personnel, two U of I public relations people and a handful of members from the Jewish community. A half hour of discussion ensued.

Finally, Cantor asked the others to leave, requesting to talk with The D.I. staff, including Stensland and then-Editor in Chief Angie Leventis, who both recall what happened next.

‘This is a verbal attack,’ Cantor said. ‘You don’t understand how this will affect the Jewish population as a whole.’

Stensland, an editor at The D.I. at the time, stood stunned.

‘This was an instance of the chancellor of a university overstepping her bounds,’ he says.

Cantor continued, ‘I have a stack of forms from parents and donors who are very concerned about this.’

Stensland asked how many donors had contacted her and how much money was involved. He never got an answer.

‘Matt,’ Cantor said, according to Stensland. ‘I think you need to take a course in Jewish history.’

‘It was the most unproductive, insulting meeting that I’ve ever been involved in,’ Stensland says. ‘You’re going into a meeting with the chancellor of a Big 10 school, you expect advice, suggestions, things to take place in a calm manner and possibly to get some good ideas out of it. That didn’t happen.’

Cantor took an example of obvious anti-Semitism and, even then, turned professionals into adversaries.

Intentionally or not, Cantor repeatedly fueled debates, enflaming emotions when situations threatened her values. With The D.I., tensions continued rising. Months after that meeting, the chancellor’s office organized a forum titled ‘Free Speech and Social Responsibility’ to discuss the letter and asked Adam Jadhav, then The D.I.’s managing editor, if he wanted to participate.

‘I looked at it as a positive,’ says Jadhav, now a reporter with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ‘that this would be the first real public dialogue about the marketplace of ideas. And then I got the guest list, and it became clear that this was a joke.’

The forum started with a roundtable discussion between a lawyer from the Anti-Defamation League, representatives from Hillel and Intergroup Relations and a law professor. The lone defender of The D.I. was a media law professor.

After the discussion, Jadhav walked on stage to field questions. Before he could speak, Cantor left the session.

‘After all was said and done, this was a rag-on-The-D.I. session,’ Jadhav says. ‘And Nancy Cantor didn’t even have the courage to be there.’

Says Jadhav: ‘She’s a passionate woman. She’s just out of touch.’

Though her style can be abrasive, Cantor’s known to put aside differences with detractors in the name of mutual understanding.

Some time after The D.I. meeting with Cantor, Stensland asked the chancellor for a favor. ‘Chancellor Cantor, you once told me I needed to take a course in Jewish history,’ Stensland told her. ‘I think this is better.’ Stensland applied for a free trip to Israel and the Middle East for young journalists and needed a letter of recommendation.

Cantor wrote him the letter, and Stensland earned his ADL-sponsored trip.

While engrained in the Chief debate, Cantor sent the president of the largest pro-Chief group, Roger Huddleston, a floral bouquet and card after he underwent cancer surgery.

‘I think reasonable people can reasonably disagree,’ Cantor says. ‘It really is important to try to be able to have those conversations and respect each other and treat each other with civility.’

At other times, Cantor let passions dictate her reaction. As Cantor finalized, debated and defended her decision to disband HillTV in October, she oscillated between both civil and impassioned.

***

In conversations with her cabinet the day of the Speak Out, Cantor discussed all possible measures and reached a reasoned conclusion. Other meetings progressed less smoothly.

As Rich Levy, HillTV’s general manager, and the rest of HillTV’s executive staff waited outside Cantor’s office to discuss the ‘Over the Hill’ content that day, Levy’s cell phone rang and a text message appeared: The locks at Watson Studios had been changed. HillTV’s staff couldn’t get back in.

‘That’s when our mood kind of shifted,’ says Sports Director Matt Maisel, accompanying Levy at the time. ‘When someone changes the locks on a student organization, it usually means that it’s closed, that it’s shut down.’

Indeed, when the executive staff entered Cantor’s office, Urtz, the dean of students, held a prepared signed letter. She read off a list of allegations levied against the station – verbal harassment, threatening speech and making students feel unsafe, among other things – which HillTV acknowledged.

Urtz then handed them the letter, and Cantor informed the staff HillTV would be disbanded.

‘It was almost at the point where it didn’t matter what we said,’ Maisel says. ‘It would be interesting to see if we said, ‘No, we don’t accept those charges,’ if she would have just taken the letter and put it in a shredder under the desk. It’d be interesting. I really don’t know. I’m curious.’

Urtz declined several requests for an interview.

‘As a student organization that had broken their own rules and the university’s rules for a long time,’ says Thomas, Cantor’s speech writer, ‘and had finally done something to get the attention of the whole campus, the chancellor made the decision that that’s it.’

Other meetings progressed more contentiously. Following her meeting with HillTV, Cantor hurried to an adjacent conference room. Opponents from Newhouse awaited.

***

Joel Kaplan returned from lunch later than usual that day, and upon entering his office heard the message waiting for him. David Rubin wanted to meet with Kaplan. Unusual, Kaplan thought. He couldn’t remember the last time Rubin, the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications dean, asked to see him on such short notice.

Kaplan hurried downstairs. Newhouse associate deans Lynn Flocke, Rosanna Grassi and Orange Television Network General Manager Andy Robinson waited, displeased.

‘In the course of the conversations,’ Kaplan says, ‘I learned what had been going on.’

Here’s what Kaplan learned: Rubin met with Cantor earlier that day to discuss a proper response to the ‘Over the Hill’ content, at which point Cantor informed Rubin of her decision to disband all of HillTV. Uncertain about Cantor’s decision, Rubin called a Newhouse-only meeting to gauge a response.

Everyone with whom Rubin met disagreed with Cantor. After about a half hour of conversation, Rubin called her office. ‘Is this a done deal? Can we still meet with the chancellor?’

As Cantor finished her meeting with HillTV, the Newhouse contingent walked to Crouse-Hinds Hall, and two equal passions readied to collide.

Throughout his career, Kaplan has defended the First Amendment, and in his first meeting with the Newhouse deans, he mentioned how, though SU is a private school, it should still embrace First Amendment ideals. Three of the Newhouse professors taught communications law. They knew SU didn’t have to abide by First Amendment law. All thought SU should.

Throughout her career Cantor defended the marginalized from hate. But it predated her time at the University of Michigan or even her undergraduate experience at Sarah Lawrence College. It started with her childhood in New York City, the epicenter of diversity and culture.

Cantor attended private school, Ethical Culture Fieldston, where curriculum revolved around world issues, ethics and moral conscience – even at an elementary school age.

‘Creating an inclusive, pluralistic and multicultural school community is deeply tied to the historical and founding mission of the school,’ Fieldston’s Web site reads. ‘We seek to maintain this leadership position by developing structures and programs that promote a diverse community, an inclusive curriculum and a welcoming and equitable environment for all.’

While there, one of Cantor’s teachers left to participate in the freedom rides of the 1960s, helping end segregation. Even as a child, Cantor knew the importance of the Civil Rights Movement.

Her parents, New York intellectuals – her father was a lawyer and her mother is a leading gerontologist – raised Cantor on the Upper West Side. Her parents shared circles with Civil Rights leaders such as John Lewis, who organized the demonstrations at segregated lunch counters. Other Civil Rights leaders routinely visited the house and interacted with a young Cantor.

‘There’s no doubt my childhood experiences greatly influenced the kind of person I am,’ Cantor says.

Cantor grew more active in high school, participating with her mother, Marjorie, in the Phoenix House program, helping low-income youth and their mothers with everything from schoolwork to life experiences as they moved to public housing.

‘It was something that opened her eyes to people very different than her family,’ Marjorie Cantor says.

Cantor’s exposure as a child continued into her career. At Michigan, she defended a race-conscious admissions policy, arguing affirmative action eliminates inequality and spurs discussion among people from different backgrounds. At Illinois, she suffered personal attacks after aligning herself with the anti-Chief voices, hoping the Chief’s retirement would create a more inclusive environment.

At Syracuse University, HillTV became an issue of safety. Unlike her previous decisions, HillTV demanded immediate action.

***

About an hour remained before the Speak Out would begin, and the Newhouse deans and faculty hoped Cantor would reconsider her decision. Throughout the next 30 minutes, Syracuse’s powerbrokers would weigh two of the most important facets of a modern university – free speech and diversity – and their argument would preface the changing shape of the campus’ reaction.

As Rubin’s cabinet waited for Cantor to arrive, conversation began with the chancellor’s associates.

‘They made it sound like everyone watching HillTV was going to burn an African-American effigy on the Quad,’ Kaplan says, ‘or run out and spray-paint homophobic content on the side of a house.’

As Newhouse faculty questioned the decision, Thomas and Vice President Linda Littlejohn defended the decision.

‘We have to show these rich white boys that they can’t do this on our turf,’ Kaplan recalled Thomas saying at the meeting.

Thomas kept mentioning how female students feared walking across the Quad and how she had a responsibility to protect them.

Conversation points spilled beyond just HillTV, as they argued about how Newhouse was portrayed in the previous night’s forum. Just then, Cantor entered.

Newhouse faculty directed questions at Cantor. Quickly, tensions escalated. When Grassi mentioned how students – not the chancellor – should be responsible for the response, Grassi added her customary nervous chuckle at the end.

‘This isn’t a laughing matter,’ Cantor responded.

‘All of a sudden,’ Kaplan says, ‘the tension rose.’

Conversation continued. Neither side conceded ground.

At one point during their meeting, Kaplan offered this thought: ‘The role of a chancellor is to take the bully puppet on and speak out against it.’

Before he could finish, Cantor cut him off: ‘Don’t tell me what the role of a chancellor is.’

‘The overall impression I got was that she was listening,’ Associate Dean Flocke says, ‘but she wasn’t going to change.’

The meeting accomplished little. Cantor allowed Robinson to oversee HillTV programming for OTN. The Newhouse faculty traded barbs with Cantor. They harped on the First Amendment. They brought up due process. They mentioned the ‘more speech’ response. Neither side relented.

Newhouse’s argument consisted of three main points.

First, why disband an entire station when only a few students created offensive material?

Second, allowing the learning opportunity to run its course would accomplish more than if the chancellor inserted herself into the situation. Already, Arielle Berlin, HillTV’s news director, read an on-air apology. The administration had organized one forum, and the night’s Speak Out would start in an hour. These students were hearing just how unwanted their message was.

And third, although SU doesn’t legally need to uphold the First Amendment, it should still embrace its ideals.

The administration responded.

‘If it’s in their house,’ Cantor responded, ‘they’re all responsible.’

‘Well, they should have known, too,’ Kaplan says of the administration. ‘And they said they had known about it for months. So why are they blaming this all on the students? That’s the most incredible part of all this.

‘The fact that there was no due process, that it was just, done, you’re guilty – outrageous.’

To the administration, too many communities within the campus had been affected.

‘My feeling was that we shouldn’t shove this ugly problem onto the Student Association at all, as if it didn’t have anything to do with us,’ Thomas says. ‘This university stands for certain moral values – justice, fair play, openness, diversity, truth – and the chancellor decided to get involved.’

Rubin ended the meeting after about a half-hour and thanked the chancellor for granting them this opportunity.

‘I was disappointed,’ Flocke says of how she felt after the meeting. ‘I think we all were.’

***

Nancy Cantor stood before the assembled crowd in Hendricks Chapel and made her announcement: ‘This afternoon, I informed HillTV that the station’s status as a recognized student organization is revoked. Therefore, HillTV no longer exists,’ she said as the audience cheered.

She made the decision to quell tensions, allow minority students to feel safe on campus and let things return to normal. But in the days following, the debate shifted.

HillTV’s program ‘Over the Hill’ no longer consisted of a conversation about offensive speech or the responsibilities of a media organization to its community.

After Cantor’s decision to disband the station, the free speech debate reigned supreme.

‘The focus did change, and it turned into a debate about free speech,’ says Kevin Morrow, SU director of news services. ‘And it’s a shame that things moved in that direction, because originally, free speech was not the central issue. And one would debate whether free speech was an issue in this situation at all (before the disbandment).’

Cantor acted to stifle discontent. Instead, she amplified it.

Cantor endured parallel personal backlash from her time at Illinois. This debate never reached national headlines, but Cantor became the lightning rod for free speech.

Thirteen full pages of ads ran in The Daily Orange during the next 27 issues. Six voiced support for the chancellor’s decision. Five argued against the chancellor or for free speech. Two sounded neutral – clarifying facts of the dispute.

Still, Cantor suffered harsh backlash. While retiring No. 44 at halftime of the Syracuse-South Florida football game, boos rained from the student section. One student raised a ‘Dump Cantor’ sign. Another held a ‘Cantor Smells’ sign.

Since Cantor’s decision, SU has seen a string of other speech-related incidents, further fueling the debate. In mid-December, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education rated SU’s speech policy a red light, meaning its policies contained the most severe violations of free speech.

Additionally, SU levied sanctions against students for content posted on Facebook.com and a photojournalism student for photos posted on his online portfolio. Most recently, students filed almost 30 bias-related incidents against conservative pundit Ann Coulter, who spoke here in March.

‘You can make a case for almost anyone on campus offending someone else,’ Kaplan says. ‘So anytime someone does something that offends another person, we’re gonna have a bias-related incident filed?’

‘(HillTV) isn’t a free speech issue,’ Thomas says, ‘and I don’t care how many times Joel Kaplan says it is.’

To Cantor’s adversaries, the debate will always revolve around free speech. To her defenders, it’ll always center on protecting the targets of the ‘Over the Hill’ programming and creating a safe environment accepting of all students.

For Cantor, it’s the fight she’s led her whole career – and life.

‘Diversity is a cornerstone of her approach to higher education for a number of reasons,’ says Brechin. ‘It is because of the rapid move in this country to a multi-cultural society, and we need to prepare students to approach it as a multicultural society. That and to have higher education be a means to improve the country and society as a whole. And to do so, one needs to make education available to all groups. And she happens to be a leader in that.’

 

Published on April 30, 2006 at 12:00 pm