Increased security at men’s sporting events annoying, biased

Thomas Soteros-Mcnamara Soteros-McNamara is a
fourth-year student. Send your pithy comments to [email protected]

One morning last November, many UCLA students woke up to a harsh
new reality.

Access ways near Pauley Pavilion had been barricaded, causing
major disruptions for those heading to class. This would be
repeated on all days that the UCLA men’s basketball team
hosted a home game, regardless of the opponent.

As anyone who has attended a men’s basketball game can
attest, the measures implemented have zero effect besides harassing
people who do decide to go and making it much more uncomfortable
for student sports fan holders.

Orchestrating all of this new “security” is
Administrative Vice Chancellor Peter Blackman. Blackman is the
ultimate authority on matters involving administrative functions
such as ASUCLA, athletics, parking, among other things, although
authority for specific projects like increased security is
sometimes delegated to other officials.

Though there had been no prior indication of this, another
member of the administration, Vice Chancellor Robert Naples, in a
Daily Bruin article, cited the need to ensure the community’s
safety in light of potential terrorist action as the impetus of
these changes. Terrorism might be the reason that Blackman and game
management members huddled for several meetings, but it is not the
cause of these abrupt and token security measures.

The new measures now require student sports package holders to
arrive two hours early and prevents them from bringing in a
backpack to carry their belongings. The university could spend the
money and institute a real upgrade for Pauley Pavilion instead of
ornamental fences, but it won’t.

Blackman’s office even elected against using the security
perimeters during women’s basketball games, acknowledging far
fewer fans can be found inside Pauley for those events. Under the
strictest reading of federal law, this selective supposed
protection from terrorist attacks is a violation of Title IX
procedures (Education Amendments of 1972, Title 20 U.S.C. Sections
1681-1688: “No person in the United States shall, on the
basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied, the
benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education
program or activity receiving Federal financial
assistance…”). But expect Murphy Hall to steadfastly deny
that.

I wrote a letter to Blackman myself, noting areas for
improvement and my suggestions. I even gave him my contact
information and went to his office on several occasions. That was
in January, and I do not expect a response. Apparently, I am just
another expendable cog in the education-industrial complex. I
attempted to contact Blackman’s office yesterday again to
confirm or deny receiving the letter but Blackman was unavailable
for comment though the person I talked to said they received the
letter.

Such unilateralism by Blackman is alarming. His inconsistency
moves far beyond favoring the boys over the girls.

He most recently authorized the purchase of a new gate for the
loading dock at the Ackerman Student Union. This is a very real
concern for the Association, but not because of “credible
threats” made against it. Rather, numerous thefts have
occurred at the dock and, under the excuse of preventing terrorism,
the authorization for the gate was suddenly more palatable. At the
same time, plenty of “targets” at UCLA remain as open
as ever. Many of the campus’ larger structures hold as many
people as a sporting event but so far we have seen no action to
make them safer and less vulnerable to terrorism.

The question is: why are men’s sporting events singled out
to be protected more than a Life Science lecture in Moore? Money is
at the center, but not necessarily greed. Blackman probably feared
that UCLA basketball customers would not patronize the games after
the “horror of Sept. 11″ and probably assumed that one
rich athletic donor is worth the whole student section. For this
reason, he may have preferred to err on the side of profit.

The truth is such fears never materialized, and there is no
indication that any sporting event in California was
“next” on the al-Qaeda hit list. Subsequently, having
all these people now stuck inside the arena for much longer
improved concession and retail sales, in turn boosting the
profitability of the athletic department.

With the state budget apparently in dire straits, this
customer-squeezing seems like a necessary evil. In the end,
security costs for the Blackman dog and pony show will outstrip the
revenue from everyone buying one more hot dog.

Nevertheless, serious and dangerous precedent has been set by
the administration. Murphy Hall’s disregard for civil
liberties has been exposed, and since no one has spoken out,
nothing will stop the next random “increased security
measure.”

Already the UCLA student finds his privacy violated by other
means like mandatory ID and university-sponsored junk mail.
Silence, as they say, is tacit consent. In light of these new
measures, silence apparently means surrender as well.