No Voice, Even Repugnant, Unheard

Did I miss a memo? When did an opinion (any opinion) become so revolting and odious that the only option available to highly erudite Columbia students is to shout and drown out the voices of opposition? When did the free exchange of ideas become so dangerous that debate could not be allowed and only violent intimidation is an appropriate response? In the past two weeks, Columbia University, my venerable alma mater, has seen two separate incidents of private censorship that threaten to destroy any claim she might make as a pinnacle of thought and enlightenment.

When I first heard that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had received an invitation to speak on campus, I was excited. His bigoted and hateful rhetoric has radically transformed the political dialogue surrounding the Middle East and American-Israeli relations. He is, without question, one of the most influential and provocative individuals in the international sphere. Unlike most radical Islamists, President Ahmadinejad does not hide in a cave or shroud his face when delivering his horrific polemics. His open attacks on Israel and the United States not only invite response-they demand it. What could be a better forum for debating Ahmadinejad then Columbia University, a bastion of freedom of speech and liberal academia?

In the aftermath of the cancellation of Ahmadinejad's invitation, there were numerous letters to the editor and articles in this paper discussing the close-minded opinions of those on Columbia's campus who were revolted by his potential appearance. Everyone should be welcome, they wrote, and no voice, no matter how repugnant, should be silenced.

When, on Wednesday, Oct. 4, I received six e-mails inviting the student body to protest Jim Gilchrist's speech at Lerner, I was intrigued. What, I wondered, was the purpose of the protest? Did these students desire to show Gilchrist that the Columbia community did not countenance his racist and bigoted speech in any form, and that his ideas were offensive to right-thinking people everywhere? Or were they focused on silencing Gilchrist and preventing him from making his case entirely? Clearly, in hindsight, I was correct in my initial belief; they wanted silence, and compliance-discussion and debate were simply unacceptable.

When the American Civil Liberties Union defended the right of the Ku Klux Klan to march through the predominantly Jewish streets of Skokie, Ill., Americans were disgusted. The ACLU was correct in their actions then-as magnificently correct as the Gilchrist protestors were incorrect. Just because a view is unpopular does not make it unworthy of broadcast. In fact, if a view is unpopular, we must actively defend it so as to prevent its extinction through tacit intimidation. I would advise closer attention to the words of John Stuart Mill in On Liberty: "If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

I do not, for a moment, seek to prevent anyone from peaceably protesting a speech that he finds hurtful or wrong. In fact, if someone believes that a particular viewpoint is immoral, he has an obligation, an ethical duty, to protest that speech. On no level, however, does anyone have the right to silence (through force, intimidation, or otherwise) an opposing view. When students rushed the podium from which Jim Gilchrist was spewing his noxious words, they crossed the line from protesting to enforcing silence. I would ask each of those protestors-every single one of them-whether they would have endorsed a similar move on behalf on LionPAC or the Columbia College Republicans had President Ahmadinejad been given a platform. Regardless of their answer to that question, my position remains the same-everyone who has something to say should be allowed to say it.

The value of free speech is that it can be used to say anything at all, but it is dangerous because it can be used to say terrible things. Yet in a liberal society, we have accepted this danger as the price we must all pay for our greater good. On Wednesday night, this freedom was threatened-and Columbia is the worse for it.