History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.
Grant, You constantly undermine you own argument with careless overstatement. Do you doubt that Clayton Cramer spoke at Columbia without disruption or interference? You'd be surprised by how many speaking engagements Lawrence Summers turns down at American universities *every year*. You haven't been checking Front Page Rag closely enough. Ann Coulter has speaking engagements at Tulane and USC, and your man, David Horowitz, is at Columbia, Emory, University of Michigan, Ohio State, and University of Wisconsin -- all in October *alone*!
"Walid Shoebat ... is also not allowed to address Columbia students by the free speech stalwarts at Columbia." That's true, many students were turned away due to those completely coincidental last minute changes, which happen all the time to Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis and their ilk and prevent students from attending their talks.
Or maybe I'm wrong after all. Columbia and the rest of academia don't discriminate and harrass "conservative" speakers and discriminate in faculty hiring; the FIRE rating of Columbia as a free speech "Red Zone" is the result of hallucinations.
When will Larry Summers be giving an address at Columbia or any other American University?
"The power base of the left in America is now in the universities," Richard Rorty.
Whatever...dudes....
At the Shoebat talk last minute changes made it impossible for many students to attend.
This appears to contradict your own link, which states that there was no restriction on Columbia students attending - only outside guests. And your claim, if you remember, was:
"Walid Shoebat ... is also not allowed to address Columbia students by the free speech stalwarts at Columbia."
I think we can now see that this was simply untrue.
No, not at all. Changes of venue may have been required at Columbia for security's sake. I've attended a lecture a Emory by David Horowitz. There was no obstruction, except in his brain.
At the Shoebat talk last minute changes made it impossible for many students to attend. Just the standard harrassment "conservative" speakers face on campus. It seems CU didn't have a problem preventing "disruptions" at the Mahdi talk.
Walid Shoebat ... is also not allowed to address Columbia students by the free speech stalwarts at Columbia.
Huh? The SFGate article you link to indicates that (a) he was allowed to address Columbia students, and (b) any problems that arose at his talk (which went ahead apparently uninterrupted) were caused precisely by CU trying to prevent the sort of disruption that forestalled Jim Gilchrist's talk. It may have been ineptly executed, but there's little evidence here of inentional malice.
As someone who previously didn't know anything about this case, I'm disappointed that you didn't see fit to represent the facts honestly. It makes me much less inclined to trust anything else you have to say.
Jim Gilchrist is my idea of the type of invited guest to Columbia who is not allowed to speak in that bastion of the First Amendment. If you don't like that example try Walid Shoebat who is also not allowed to address Columbia students by the free speech stalwarts at Columbia.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/11/29/cstillwell.DTL
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/schools/1056
Columbia operates on an obvious double-standard: Mass murdering dictators are worthy of debate and dialogue; those who are right of center (however undefined) are not.
Jim Gilchrist? Jim Gilchrist? Jim Gilchrist? Is he your idea of a conservative speaker? You need to explore the world of conservative thought more fully!
"Can you think of any harm that has been done?"
More than would have transpired if Jim Gilchrist had been allowed to give a talk at Columbia.
What's great about providing a mass murderer and enemy of this nation a venue to spout lies, when Americans with "right-wing" views are not accorded the same privilege? Should Columbia and other American colleges have invited Ho Chi Minh to give a talk on the joys of Maoism in 1968...oh never mind
Grant, In another life, a libertarian such as yourself would marvel at what a great university and a great country it is that can invite the head of a government with which the country is officially in a "state of war" to address its audience and, in introducing him, the president of that university denounce the offenses of that country's regime. Can you think of any harm that has been done?
That's real funny.
"Oh NOEZZ! Itz Teh SCAREZ!"
Is that the sound a Persian homosexual makes as the noose tightens around his neck?
By the way Iran has been in a state of war with the USA since 1979, in case you care.
I wish the first point would have come across more forcefully: that some Americans groups would have welcomed a rousing speech from Adolf. Or the second point, for that matter. The academy's response to Nazism, especially in Europe, was weak at best, and things couldn't have been worse if fascist leaders had been intensely interrogated by faculty and students.
Oh NOEZZ! Itz Teh SCAREZ!