Free
Speech is For Everyone
Barry
Fagin
The
Denver Post
Sunday,
April 22nd 2001
I’ve been
personally affected by two free speech incidents that have been getting a lot
of press. One occurred where I went to college,
the other on the pages of this newspaper.
One relates to my politics, the other to my religion. It’s fascinating to compare them, because
they illustrate two competing approaches to dealing with free speech
issues. One is right, the other is wrong.
A few
weeks ago, the Brown University student paper ran an ad by conservative writer
David Horowitz. It criticized the idea
of reparations for black Americans: Horowitz listed several reasons why giving
money to the descendants of slaves was not the right thing to do.
Horowitz’s
views are nominally controversial, particularly on a liberal Ivy League
campus. But elite universities are
supposed to be places committed to free inquiry, the civilized exchange of ideas, and a dispassionate search for
truth. Horowitz’s ad could have served
as a starting point for a thoughtful debate on the reparation issue, the role
of race in America, or any of several other important topics. Critics could have refuted the ad point by
point, submitted their arguments as articles for the paper, or taken out an ad
of their own. Advertising in college papers isn’t that expensive.
But
Brown’s self-proclaimed defenders of the oppressed would have none of
that. Instead, the “Coalition of
Concerned Brown Students” stole as many copies of the paper as they could find.
They then organized a forum where tenured professors argued, with a straight
face, that free speech doesn’t apply to oppressors. How can we know who the oppressors are, to see who truly deserves
free speech? Fortunately for those of
us not blessed with superior intellect, these same professors are more than
happy to tell us.
Nor was
the response in the days to follow any better.
Brown’s Undergraduate Council of Students passed a resolution opposing
university disciplinary action against the students who stole the paper. 27 faculty composed a letter to the
president accusing the university of
“failing to address the racist attacks on students, faculty and staff of
color”, calling for disciplinary action against the students on the paper who
supported running the ad. Brown’s
interim president, to her credit, published a response in support of free
speech, but support from the rest of the university appears lukewarm at
best. All in all, it made me embarrassed
for my school.
Compare
this to the controversy and response to Easter Sunday’s “B.C.” comic
strip. Johnny Hart, an evangelical
Christian and BC’s creator, chose to devote his strip to sharing his faith by
showing a menorah, a sacred Jewish symbol, slowly being replaced by a cross as
the last words of Jesus are recited.
Not surprisingly, Jews everywhere were outraged.
As a Jew
myself, I found Hart’s strip appalling, but hardly surprising. After all, Hart
has publicly stated that people like me who don’t share his views will burn in
Hell after we die. I believe he has a
right to express that view, and as a member of the ACLU I am committed to
defending that right. Although
personally I have to wonder: what is Christ doing in a comic strip called “B.C.”?
But
leaving my personal feelings aside, it’s worth noting that the response of
groups like the Jewish Defense League has been nothing like what happened at
Brown. No one in the JDL has called for
the destruction of property, the theft of papers containing the comic, or the
revocation of Hart’s right to express his views as a member of the “oppressor
class”. Instead, the JDL asked for papers to remove BC from their comics page,
to kill the strip for a week in protest, and/or to publish statements from authors
who disagree. Statements like this one.
The JDL’s
statement on this issue can be read at www.jdl.org
; Hart’s reply at www.creators.com. This
is the right way to handle a free speech issue: with constructive, positive action and still more speech. I hope that
this incident prompts people of good will everywhere to see that their
commitment to free speech should include speech they find offensive, no matter
where it comes from and no matter whom it upsets. Anything else is simply unprincipled.
***
Barry
Fagin is the Senior Fellow in Technology Policy at the Independence Institute,
and a recipient of the National Civil Liberties Award from the ACLU. He is a
member of
Temple Shalom in Colorado Springs.