Ludacris concert in doubt following Freedom Hall denial
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
By COREY SHOUN
JOHNSON CITY - East Tennessee State University's controversial homecoming concert looked iffy Monday after Johnson City's city manager rejected the university's request to use Freedom Hall Civic Center and other venues were unavailable.
Hip-hop performer Ludacris was scheduled to appear Oct. 27 in a concert for the student body funded by a recent fee increase. ETSU booked the act at Freedom Hall after the state fire marshal rejected the use of Memorial Center as a venue for concerts.
ETSU President Paul Stanton said Monday he had spoken with City Manager Pete Peterson earlier in the day, and Peterson had decided against signing the lease agreement for Freedom Hall.
"He has serious concerns with issues of security," Stanton said. "As of 8:30 this (Monday) morning, Freedom Hall was not open as a venue."
Peterson said he made the decision based on his own research and community comments he has received over the past few weeks. He said the city would not presume to tell the university they could not have the concert elsewhere.
"In other locations there have been issues with crowd control and violence," Peterson said. "It's not in the community's best interest to have the possibility of that type situation on a middle school campus.
"People deserve the right to listen to what they want to listen to as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else."
After hearing the news that Freedom Hall was unavailable, student organizers began checking other possible venues, including Viking Hall in Bristol.
But Dr. Sally Lee, ETSU associate vice president for student affairs, later reported that Viking Hall, too, balked at the idea, so they were no longer seeking a new location.
Stanton said the university had not signed a contract with Ludacris, as only verbal discussions had occurred, and any agreement would have been inapplicable without a specific venue.
"Right now, there is no contract with Freedom Hall," he said. "There is no contract with Ludacris."
Likewise, Peterson said he was also unaware of an actual contract with the performer. "I never saw a contract to rent (Freedom Hall)."
The ETSU president said he reviewed the state fire marshal's letter rejecting the Mini Dome as a concert venue, and the decision stood for any concert, not just the Ludacris event.
Student Government Association leaders inquired again Monday to no avail.
"From what we understood, the concern of the state fire marshal was the floor seating in the Mini Dome," Lee said. "The word back was the state fire marshal was 100 percent clear there would be no concerts in the Mini Dome."
Stanton also said he had rejected the notion of conducting the homecoming event outdoors for security reasons.
"There's just too much risk there," Stanton said.
ETSU's Homecoming Committee booked the act after the SGA raised the student activity fee from $4 per semester to $20 last school year to accommodate such events. The student activities office polled students about performers they would like to see in concert, and Ludacris was the first on the resulting list who agreed to appear.
ETSU staff members and Student Government Association officers immediately heard complaints that the performer's lyrical content - off-color and sexually explicit language, illegal drug use, violence and misogyny - would be ill-suited to a university-endorsed program. SGA officers and advisers defended the choice, saying students could choose whether to attend.
SGA President J.R. Husmillo said Monday he believed community members had pressured the city to reject Freedom Hall as a venue for the Ludacris concert.
"We're frustrated because we haven't shown our side of the story to the city, the commissioners, to whoever they've talked to," Husmillo said. "This isn't for the community. I appreciate their concern in looking out for the best interests of the university, but I think we're absolutely mature enough to look out for our own interests.
"We're all adults here. Them taking this away from us is an infringement of student rights. This is student dollars. This is student money. This is our event," Husmillo said.
Stanton said some critics had misunderstood the funding mechanism for the $85,000 concert, since the self-imposed fee covered the costs. He said the students were trying to do something good for ETSU by bringing top concerts to campus, but the choice of acts had generated concerns.
"It's unfortunately polarizing things right now," Stanton said.
Asked about his personal opinion of the students' selection, the ETSU president said he had been unfamiliar with Ludacris' music until he listened to some recordings in his office and conducted an Internet search to read some of the material.
"I have some real problems with what I see in the lyrics of this individual or group," Stanton said, adding that he found a lack of "dignity" and "respect" in the material. "That really, really bothers me. I didn't see anything that reflected our values."
Stanton said ETSU values diversity in its mission, for example, yet Ludacris "speaks against every group you can think of" including women, fellow African-Americans and homosexuals.
"That's not consistent with ETSU's values," Stanton said.
The Ludacris decision marked the second time the city had rejected an act's appearance at Freedom Hall. In 1996, the rock band White Zombie was scheduled to play at Freedom Hall until the City Commission revoked the contract. White Zombie moved the concert to Viking Hall, where further community protests occurred.
Press staff members Deirdre Noonan and Sam Watson contributed to this report.
http://www.timesnews.net/article.dna?_StoryID=3553525
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