In defense of the removal of Mecha de U of U from the Center for Equity and Student Belonging’s sponsored status, The Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board wrote, “What [Mecha] doesn’t have the right to do is to stop other people and other organizations, on campus and elsewhere, from meeting to promote their views and demonstrate in support of their causes. Even if one of the causes might well be seen as a heinous stand against the rights of transgender people.”

This sentiment, expressed by both media sources and the University of Utah’s administration, reflects a political position that, for too long, has been portrayed as enlightened and fair: the position of remaining neutral to both sides. From the dignity of trans people to the mandate for Palestinian liberation, the insistence that vague and individualistic positions take priority over the right of oppressed people to resist continues to pollute mainstream political conversation. Even when siding with the oppressed seems entirely obvious, and required of us morally. 

What the proponents of granting right-wing forces full reign to organize without pushback fail to realize is just how partial this position actually is. As a political organizer, I’ve had the honor of working closely with the young and inspiring activists of Mecha. In one of the first of what would become a pattern of disputes with the U administration, they faced pushback from the U for an event they co-hosted with Armed Queers Salt Lake City, which I am an active organizer of.

The pushback from the U was over the advertising of the event, insisting that the flyers promoted a level of militancy that was not palatable enough and recommended they change the symbolism. This occurred shortly before a student organization plastered anti-trans propaganda all over campus, a clear breach of “equity, diversity and inclusion,” which was met with no pushback or recommendations of palatability. 

Rather, the propaganda was met with full defense from both institutional mandate and media apparatus, insisting resistance against it was a violation of free speech, attempting to persuade us to believe that, for trans and all oppressed people, resisting propaganda organized against them is equivalent to the consequences of the propaganda itself.

However, it does not escape us that the forces attempting to draw this equivalency were also leading the effort to pacify Mecha’s events, and stood in favor of the silencing they are constantly subject to. It also does not escape us that the law, the First Amendment in particular, was invoked to make these assertions. Yet, neither the law nor the First Amendment has ever truly stopped the repression of political movements, and the decades of McCarthyite attacks, which continue to this day. And so long as the First Amendment is shaped by the state and legitimized through a constitution created by a slave-owning class, it can never be neutral and without political alliance.

Indeed, transphobia, Zionism, racism and the history of anti-left witch hunts have been responsible for some of the most undeniable forms of silencing. With trans and queer activists consistently facing vigilante intimidation and Palestinian activists making up a mass wave of political prisoners, we must always ask, freedom of speech for who?

Clearly, it has never been for popular struggles.

To frame both sides as the same, to insist there is a right to bigotry that outweighs the struggles of oppressed people, undoubtedly benefits one side over the other. “Freedom of speech” is only invoked in favor of those who have it the most, the rest of us are far too much of a political threat to receive such benefit.

It is clear that both-sides-ism, the phenomenon of prioritizing centrism above any substantive goal for our world, has left us weak as the forces of fascism continue to grow. If we wish to adequately organize and build power amongst our communities, it can no longer take place within institutions or through their regulations. We have to be willing to build and mobilize with the understanding that institutions are antithetical to activist projects. Relegating our movements to obsolete diversity campaigns, activism must always take place outside of the U.

It is also clear that the people, on the U’s campus and all over the world, have chosen a side. As hundreds of thousands have shown up in favor of Palestinian liberation and energy on college campuses continues to grow in favor of trans liberation, the side of resistance strengthens its numbers by the day.

If there are two sides, the masses have shown up for only one of them and unequivocally rejected the other. Centrism remains entirely unpopular, while commitment to political struggle presents a promising future for all of us.

— Ermiya Fanaeian, Student at the University of Utah

The Daily Utah Chronicle publishes guest op-eds written by faculty, elected officials and other members of the public on topics relevant to students at the University of Utah. The Chronicle welcomes guest op-ed pitches here.

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