Bloomberg on Free Speech

Today, Mayor Bloomberg announced a two-week suspension for the Correction Department's top chaplain, who delivered a speech last year stating that"the greatest terrorists in the world occupy the White House" and denouncing"the Zionists of the media." Bloomberg rejected calls for fire the imam (who three Jewish chaplains publicly supported), and said that he issued the suspension on grounds that the imam, in making an"inappropriate and offensive" statement, hadn't made clear that he was speaking for himself and not in an official capacity.

Bloomberg's bold defense of free speech, however, most caught my eye."Looking across America, it seems that free speech is being attacked by the right under the guise of patriotism and by the left through academic intolerance that stifles necessary debate," he said, adding,"We must never use the war on terror, or political correctness, as the pretext for stifling political speech."

The mayor appoints five members to the CUNY Board of Trustees. I hope that he keeps his own words in mind when he makes future appointments, and names figures who will seek to dismantle the culture of"academic intolerance" that continues to exist in some quarters of CUNY.