Catholic League

News Release
April 27, 2006

UNIV. OF OREGON’S DISHONEST PRESIDENT

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, responds today to the latest
remarks by University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer:

“The website, www.worldnetdaily.com, is currently featuring a story based
on our news release yesterday regarding the Insurgent, a University of
Oregon student newspaper; the March edition ran cartoons of Jesus that
are vulgar beyond belief. I had no intention of doing anything more about
this matter than what I did yesterday (which was to send a letter criticizing
Dave Frohnmayer, the school’s president, to Oregon lawmakers and others—
along with a copy of the two worst depictions), until I read Frohnmayer’s
reply to the publicity. But now that he is being dishonest, it is time for
further action.

“Frohnmayer is now saying that the reason he didn’t do anything about this
matter, save for issuing a lame criticism of the Insurgent, is because the
student newspaper ‘is not owned, controlled or published by the University
of Oregon and is funded with student fees.’

“The fact is that the University of Oregon forces all students to pay $191 per
term in student fees, and that these fees are a condition of class enrollment.
The Student Government awarded the Insurgent $18,349 in student fees this
academic year to pay for its costs, without which the newspaper could not
function. The newspaper’s offices are not located off-campus—they are given
space by the university on campus. And for at least the last four years, the
newspaper has been allowed to use the university’s non-profit bulk-mail
permit (school officials got nervous when the March edition appeared and
only then did they stop the Insurgent from using its mailing permit).

“Given all this, it is so disingenuous for President Frohnmayer to claim that
he is impotent to act. He didn’t even have the moral decency to publicly
condemn the decision by David Goward, Program Director of the Associated
Students of the University of Oregon, who—after meeting with a university
attorney—said the Insurgent need not apologize nor refrain from Catholic
bashing again.”

Contact Frohnmayer at pres@oregon.uoregon.edu.

http://www.catholicleague.org/06press_releases/quarter%202/060427_U_oregon_pres.htm
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The Catholic League
For Religious and Civil Rights
http://www.catholicleague.org/

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. It
defends individual Catholics and the institutional Church from defamation
and discrimination.