Downey Jr. Draws 150 in Audience, 15 Protesters

While 15 picketing students denounced him as racist, Morton Downey Jr., the deposed king of schlock and shock television, lit a cigarette and fulminated inside Cal State Fullerton’s Titan Hall on Tuesday night.

“You ready for some (profanity) tonight?” Downey said, and Titan Hall erupted in hoots, grunts, whistles and catcalls from more than 150 students.

For the next hour, and with all the basic profanity he could muster, Downey launched into a controlled tirade against lawyers, doctors, gays, the government, television advertisers and his planned subject for the night: censorship.

“Is there censorship on American TV today?” Downey asked his audience. “Forty-three percent of ad money comes from foreign companies. When they don’t want something on TV, they can withdraw their ad money and they can do a hit list if they don’t like you.”

The appearance by the acerbic Downey was sponsored by the Associated Students and paid for by $5,000 in student funds, which are collected through a mandatory student fee. Downey, whose raucous TV talk show was canceled last July because of declining ratings, has been on the lecture circuit since then.

Before the event began, about 15 students from the Multi-Cultural Council, representing 28 campus groups, picketed outside the University Center. A few carried signs saying “Down With Downey.”

Last week, the Multi-Cultural Council passed a resolution condemning Downey as a racist and called for a boycott of his appearance. As Downey took the podium, a council representative handed him a note signed by the group’s chairwoman, Judy Perry-Lichtenstein. Downey read it aloud.

“We expect you to use judicious and non-profane language,” it read.

Downey wadded up the note and denied he was a racist, saying:

“There’s only one . . . race. That’s the human race. Black, brown, white, yellow, it’s all one race.”

Perry-Lichtenstein, a graduate student in public administration, said that in past public appearances Downey has used racial epithets in reference to blacks and has denigrated other cultural and minority groups, including Arabs and Iranians, gays and lesbians.

“We are protesting what we consider the socially irresponsible use of $5,000 in student money to bring a known racist to campus,” she said. “We believe institutional sponsorship of a racist form of entertainment can only raise the tolerance level for racism.”

To persuade students not to attend the event, the Multi-Cultural Council posted flyers around campus that contained a ghost image of a skull and crossbones and accused Downey of being a racist.

The flyers brought a swift rebuke from Associated Students President Jim Simon, who demanded that the council stop distributing the handbills because it might incite violence at the event. Simon said the Associated Students supported the council’s right to call for a boycott but did not like the way it was being publicized.

“When you put a skull and crossbones on an article, it’s more than just a protest. It suggests a threat,” Simon said. “It’s our feeling and after talking with a lawyer that this could entice violence at the protest. At the same time, we feel we have a right to bring Morton Downey Jr. here.”

“This is the biggest bunch of malarkey I have heard of,” Perry-Lichtenstein retorted. “They sponsor this as a free-speech event, and then they deny us our free speech.”

Associated Student Productions, which sponsored Downey’s appearance, denied it was insensitive to racial concerns and decided to proceed with the event, it said, to protect the right of free speech.

The Downey brouhaha comes on the heels of other racial controversies, including a recent fraternity “slave auction” and Aunt Jemima lip-sync. Aunt Jemima, a black maid, is the trademark of Aunt Jemima pancake syrup.

In 1986, a protest erupted when it was discovered that Thomas L. Metzger, a former California Ku Klux Klan leader, was using a public-access television studio to tape his nationally distributed cable-TV series, “Race and Reason.”