Participating in the Boston DSA, I routinely find the organization describing itself as a “big tent” organization. I have always found this claim to be a bit counter to my experiences. The membership I have encountered has typically been extremely narrow in its average age; it has almost no racial diversity; and most of the folks I have interacted with seem to have a heavy bent towards being employed in technical fields.

It’s hard to meaningfully argue that you’re a “big tent” when everyone under the tent looks pretty much the same. When you fail at reaching across organizational boundaries – when 80% of a 150 person meeting is white, middle-class, and between the ages of 25 and 35 – then you really need to examine whether the claim of being a ‘big tent’ organization is anything more than lip service.

At the most recent meeting, the level to which these “big tent” claims are at odds with the behavior of the DSA was really laid bare in the introduction to the meeting:

Here is a small 35 second transcript of a portion of the intro to the most recent Boston DSA meeting:

We believe that cops are a key way of protecting capitalism: We don’t want cops in our meetings. Is there anyone who is part of law enforcement or represents the interests of law enforcement in this building right now? [pause] Seeing none: In general, there are a few guidelines for having comradely discussions, the first is respect your comrades. Everyone comes to DSA in their own special way and we want to be respectful of the different experiences and viewpoints that people have. We are a big tent organization…

Now, the Boston DSA does have a law enforcement disclosure bylaw (passed within the past year), specifically Article 3 Section 3 of the bylaws. However, the bylaw is a much more narrow statement: what it says is that “The local membership should be informed if any person currently employed as a law enforcement officer is in attendance at any meeting”.

Compare the bylaw to the implementation at this meeting.

  • The presenter said: “We don’t want cops in our meetings.” That may be the personal opinion of the speaker, but it is certainly not what the bylaw indicates.
  • No aspect of the bylaw indicates that a member of law enforcement must individually identify themselves to all the membership, but that the members should be aware that such a person is in attendence. (The difference, for those who might wish to participate in the DSA, is pretty massive, in the same way saying “We know that there is a reporter here” is different from saying “That person sitting in the crowd right there is Joe Schmo, a reporter from the Boston Globe.”)
  • The presenter expanded the definition from “currently employed as a law enforcement officer” to also include anyone who “represents the interests of law enforcement” – a pretty significant expansion of the bylaw as I would interpret it.

This drastic expansion of the wording of the bylaw at the start of the meeting sets the DSA as explicitly adversarial to the presence of anyone who “represents the interests of law enforcement” (a broad and ill-defined category). To follow this comment up immediately with a comment on how the DSA is a big tent organization just made me shake my head at the complete lack of awareness of the ways in which the Boston DSA is not always a big tent organization.

I do not blame the Boston DSA for establishing rules about their interactions with law enforcement. In a city where the law enforcement agencies have a long history of targeting of left-wing groups for additional scrutiny, these choices are reasonable to ensure the membership can make appropriate actions for their safety. Just be aware that when you’re opening a meeting – or repeatedly describing yourself – as a big tent organization, while explicitly kicking out people solely based on their place of work, you’re engaging in a pattern that is going to cause some of your audience to disengage. In this case, it’s not just law enforcement officers who you’re making feel unwelcome, but a much broader swath of the population – including me.

As a member of Boston DSA, I respect the membership’s decision to pass the existing law enforcement bylaw. I think it is a measured response to a real concern of the membership. The arbitrary expansion of that guideline is not something I signed onto, or would sign onto, and the way it was phrased makes me less comfortable engaging with the Boston DSA.