If you would, strap on your goggles, buckle your seat belt and hop into the time machine. Destination: the University of Utah campus, almost 29 years ago to the day.
It was fall 1975. The Women's Resource Center at the U. was gearing up for its annual Women's Conference, an event partially funded with student fees. Keynote speaker: Gloria Steinem, pioneering feminist, founder of Ms. magazine and vocal advocate of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment - a measure that died in no small part because of the LDS Church's well-organized and aggressive opposition campaign throughout the '70s.
The parallels between the explosion created by the UVSC student association's decision to pay Moore $40,000 for a stop along the route of his anti-Bush, anti-war road show and the U. of U.'s invitation to Steinem are stunningly similar.
The mere mention of their names - both of them firebrands within a particular cultural and political freeze frame - have led smug conservative legislators to threaten snipping at state higher-ed purse strings. People start screaming for boycotts and equal time for opposing speakers. Then the scramble is on to round up all those brazen little college students who are risking and experimenting and learning to think and shut them down.
"I always have found it fascinating that on college campuses we have this pretend environment where students are encouraged to make decisions to help prepare them for the real world. And then they get punished for it," says Cynthia Boshard, who was a student chairwoman of the 1975 U. of U. conference that brought Steinem to Salt Lake City.
In the framework of the time, Steinem's appearance on a public university campus in Utah was every bit as controversial as Moore's is today, following his rise to fame around "Fahrenheit 9/11."
The ERA had been hotly debated nationwide. The U.S. Supreme Court had legalized abortion two years earlier. Women were joining the workforce in droves. Title IX, passed in 1972 and requiring equal access for females in high school and college athletics, was taking hold.
Among the bedrock right wing in Utah, feminism was a filthy word and Gloria Steinem was feminism's guru.
"We couldn't think of a more exciting speaker at the time," recalls Boshard, who today is director of IHC's Community Health Partnership. "Unfortunately, too many people see a university's invitation to a controversial speaker as an endorsement of their position, and not as an opportunity to learn more."
The days leading up to Steinem's speech had been peppered with threats from conservative student leaders to pull funding from the Women's Resource Center. Protesters threatened to gather outside the University Union Ballroom.
Boshard remembers dining with Steinem shortly before her speech. "We were worried about no turnout. We drove back to campus and found the parking lot overflowing. Our first thought was, 'Oh no. They've scheduled a conflicting event here for the same night.' ''
The ballroom was packed. Spectators lined up against the walls. If there was a boycott, no one felt it. Boshard even heard from a few attendees, who, while still vehemently opposed to Steinem's views, found some value in the way she challenged their beliefs.
And scary as it seems, Moore will do the same. Just as Steinem did before him, and Ronald Reagan and Karl Rove have done in between. Because the message to take home is never really about the speaker.
It's about stretching the mind.
hmullen@sltrib.com
