October 6, 2006
Free Speech for Me but Not for Thee Posted by John Steele Gordon at 12:00 PM EST When Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the Minuteman Project, tried to speak at Columbia University the other day, he was shouted down by a bunch of intellectual thugs and had to be escorted out a back door for his own safety. He was a guest of the Columbia University Young Republicans, who had hired Columbia University police to keep order. They didn’t. (Take a look at the video at the above link).
One of the thugs is quoted as saying, “I don’t feel like we need to apologize or anything. It was fundamentally a part of free speech. . . . The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration.” Translation: My rights under the First Amendment are absolute; yours are what I agree to let you have.”
You would think that a university would have a strong reaction to the violent suppression of peacefully stated opinion by a mob on its own campus. But so far the reaction has been little more than a few platitudes and tut-tuts from the Columbia University administration. No one believes that anything more forceful will be forthcoming.
There has been a disturbing pattern of leftist threats and violence against campus speakers they do not approve of, followed by an anemic reaction from college authorities, in recent decades. I would be genuinely interested in learning instances in which right-leaning students have sought to prevent leftist speakers from having their say. I know of no examples. Examples of the opposite abound.
In the 1970s, if I remember the time period correctly, the Nobel Prize winner William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, was frequently prevented from speaking about his very unpopular racial ideas, under the rubric of “no free speech for racists.”
In 1983, when Jeane Kirkpatrick, then the United States ambassador to the United Nations, was invited to give the commencement address at Smith College, she was forced to withdraw after violence was threatened and the college president, Jill K. Conway, said that she could not guarantee her security. The New York Times (which hasn’t bothered to cover the fracas at Columbia this week, although the New York Sun has had extensive coverage, here, here, and here) headlined the story of Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s withdrawal MRS. KIRKPATRICK BREAKS A DATE. Isn’t that neat? Threatened with violence, told by the college president that she’s on her own if she comes, Mrs. Kirkpatrick is described by the Times headline as the one who cancelled the appearance.
Ms. Conway, of course, could easily have secured the safety of Mrs. Kirkpatrick (not to mention the reputation of Smith College) by issuing the following:
1) Smith College is dedicated to the principle of free speech and will not tolerate violence to prevent it.
2) I have asked the governor of Massachusetts to provide sufficient state police to assure that Mrs. Kirkpatrick can both speak and be heard by all. The National Guard will be called if it is deemed necessary.
3) Any person not associated with Smith College who tries to prevent our guest from speaking will be arrested.
4) Any student who does so will be expelled forthwith.
5) Any faculty member who does so will be fired.
6) Peaceful demonstrations that do not disrupt the speaker or the audience’s ability to hear her will be allowed. People wishing to do so must announce their intention ahead of time and follow the directions of the campus police.
Instead, she caved to the mere threat of disruption.
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