 "Photo: Courtesy of Stuart Hurlbert")
While national and local news headlines were flooded with cautionary messages about students traveling to Mexico for Spring Break, one San Diego State professor's warning was deemed unfit to print at California State University San Marcos’ student newspaper, The Pride.
When he's not teaching in the biology department, professor Stuart Hurlbert, Ph.D., works as a coordinator for "Americans United to Halt Tourism in Mexico," and serves on the board of directors for "Californians for Population Stabilization." The week before Spring Break, Hurlbert tried to sell an advertisement titled "Boycott Mexico" to multiple student newspapers.
The ad, which was published in the University of Arizona's The Daily Wildcat as well as University of California, Los Angeles' The Daily Bruin, recommended Americans not go to Mexico for any tourism activity until the Mexican government meets certain conditions such as reimbursing “the U.S. federal and state governments, 50 percent of the costs of incarceration of Mexican illegal aliens” and ceasing to try to influence U.S. immigration legislation.
Hurlbert said he did not view the advertisement as being, in his words, “anti-Hispanic,” but rather its intention was to put pressure on the Mexican government by way of the tourism industry, which is a lucrative aspect of Mexico’s overall income, he said.
While Jackie Carbajal, the editor-in-chief of The Pride, could not be reached for comment, she said in a written statement that “Upon receiving the ad in question, we made the decision to reject it because we found it to contain material that would offend our audience, was manipulative of facts and could be deemed as discriminatory to members of our campus community."
She also stated that, according to the newspaper’s policy, the newspaper reserves the right to reject any advertisement, a decision Hurlbert acknowledged The Pride had the right to exercise.
In reaction to what Hurlbert said was an act of political censorship, he used the money that would have gone to the newspaper’s advertising department to instead print fliers of the ad, and hand them out to students at CSU San Marcos.
Some of the statements in the ad included, “Mexico has become increasingly aggressive and hostile to the United States and disrespectful of our laws,” and “It (Mexico) has demanded amnesty for all Mexicans who enter the U.S. illegally.”
Alberto Díaz, the press attaché for the Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego, said those statements are factually incorrect and that the Mexican government has never demanded amnesty for “all Mexicans who enter the U.S. illegally,” but does ask for humane treatment of individuals.
Jeff Schwilk, founder of the San Diego Minutemen, wrote to the administration, staff and faculty of CSUSM on behalf of AUHTM, expressing his concern regarding Carbajal’s judgment to not run the ad.
“The AUHTM Coalition would like to thank Editor Carbajal ... for (her) service as (a) reincarnation of the anti-free speech Republicans who tried to close down the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in the 1960s,” Schwilk said.
As an environmental scientist, Hurlbert said the impact of high immigration with low emigration has dramatic consequences on long-term environmental sustainability.
“We can go the same direction of China and India or we can say those are negative examples for us and we want to stabilize our population,” Hurlbert said.
Nick Seivel of The Daily Wildcat said while the editorial board was in agreement to run the advertisement, they made the call to run it on the Thursday before Spring Break instead of Friday to give students the chance to respond to the controversial advertisement.
“Surprisingly, we didn’t get one letter to the editor about it,” Seivel said. “I thought for sure we would hear something.”
Director of media relations and new media Greg Block said SDSU professors in any department are free to express their political views.
“We are a free speech university,” Block said. “We don’t tell people what they can and can’t say politically … we don’t have any issue with anyone expressing their political views.”
Do not give your tourist dollars to Mexico !
Spend them in the beautiful American Southwest !
Mexico has become increasingly aggressive and hostile to the United States
and disrespectful of our laws. • It has demanded amnesty for all Mexicans who
enter the U.S. illegally. • It demands that the U.S. increase quotas for legal
immigration by Mexicans so that Mexico can ship its surplus population to the
U.S. • According to a Pew Hispanic Center poll, 21% of Mexican adults say they
plan to come to the U.S. even if they have to do so illegally. • According to the
DHS, 70% of the illegal aliens now in the U.S. are from Mexico • No other country
in the world behaves towards the U.S. with such insolence and arrogance. • And
within Mexico, violence is more pervasive than ever.
In light of these undisputed facts,
AMERICANS UNITED TO HALT TOURISM IN MEXICO (AUHTM)
hereby urges all Americans to avoid Mexico as a tourism
destination, whether for a night of partying, a day stop on an ocean cruise, a
weekend of off-roading, a week of studying archeological ruins, or two weeks at a
luxury resort. There are many wonderful people in Mexico, and we regret the negative
effects – hopefully short-term – this may have on them. We count on them to demand
better, more civilized behavior on the part of their own government.
We urge that all Americans adhere to this boycott until the Mexican government
meets the following demands. The Mexican government must:
1. Cease all attempts to interfere with enforcement of U.S.
immigration law.
2. Cease all attempts to influence U.S. immigration legislation.
3. Cease all financial support of individuals and organizations in the
U.S. that protect, harbor, or provide services to illegal aliens in
the U.S.
4. Cease the issuance of matriculas consulares to Mexican citizens
residing illegally in the U.S.
5. Reimburse annually to the U.S. federal and state governments,
50% of the costs of incarceration of Mexican illegal aliens in
U.S. prisons and jails.
6. Cease encouraging Mexican citizens to enter the U.S. illegally and
giving them advice as to how to escape detection once here.
AUHTM is a coalition of peaceful, law-abiding organizations working toward the halting of illegal
immigration, attrition of the illegal alien population by enforcement, and reduction of the U.S. population
growth rate. A pdf of this flyer, with suggestions for its use and much other information, may be
found on the AUHTM Coalition website at http://www.BoycottMexicoNow.com. Organizations
interested in joining this coalition can contact info@BoycottMexicoNow.com. http://www.BoycottMexicoNow.com: go to this website and actually review the content on it and tell me again that this was just someone who was simply trying to warn students at Cal State San Marcos about their safety. It is disheartening to me that a professor would go to such great lengths and that people would be so quick to attack a student at a university for merely exercising her right to reject an advertisement. Advertisements get pulled by the media all the time for many different reasons. An example would be PETA and their ads that they were said to be too provocative for television, I'm sure that although they were provocative in nature that they did not feel that their ads should be banned from television. Furthermore, Cal State San Marcos sent multiple advisory warnings out to everyone on campus warning them of the dangers of traveling to Mexico and attaching the state advisory in the email. They even halted the travel to Mexico of faculty or campus organizations. To accuse CSUSM of not acting in the best interest of the safety of its community is ignorant and plain false. There is a difference between sending out the facts and voicing your opinion. What the state sent out was facts about the violence in Mexico and the facts that were presented by this ad were discriminatory and untrue. There is no way that he could prove that Americans are going down to Mexico and teaching them how to cross the border and escape detection once here. Just something to think about and I say GOOD JOB Jackie Carbajal for not caving in to the pressures put on her by this professor and his minutemen affiliates despite the backlash that it is clear from these comments that she is facing.
• we found it to contain material that would offend our audience,
• was manipulative of facts and
• could be deemed as discriminatory to members of our campus community."• Yes, and the moon could be deemed to made of bleu cheese.But only a sadly deluded person, a college rag editor such as, for example, Jackie Carbajal, product of a generation of severe dumbing-down in public school would think any of the bulleted statements logically or empirically defensible and valid.In other words, Jackie Carbajal, editor-in-chief of The Pride, is simply intellectually inadequate. Stick to running stories on long lines at the bookstore, Jackie, and don't try to defend your Anti-American prejudices. They are indefensible and repugnant to Americans who cherish civil rights and the Bill of Rights.