Panelists Debate Free Speech

An organizer of the Minuteman Project protest at Columbia University and a Village Voice writer discussed free speech last night at the Faculty House as the first event in a new monthly series intended to promote controversial discussion on campus.

The event, dubbed "Friendly Fire" and moderated by professor David Eisenbach, featured Nat Hentoff from Village Voice, and Karina Garcia, CC '07, the protest organizer.

Columbia's commitment to free speech has been under scrutiny since last October, when student protesters rushed the stage while Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, spoke.

The participants debated speech codes, codes of conduct, and accusatory language, as well as whether or not certain codes and restrictions are necessary to create a setting where everyone is comfortable.

"Where in the Constitution does it say we have the right to be comfortable?" Hentoff asked. "When you knock down free speech, that is fascism."

But Hentoff made it clear that, while he did not agree with what the protestors did, he did not think they should be punished.

Garcia emphasized several times that the protestors did not try to prevent the Minutemen from coming to the University.

"If they were going to speak, we were going to show up too," she said. "We weren't organizing against bad ideas. We were organizing against an organization of armed vigilantes."

Garcia argued that it was the media who portrayed the Minutemen as victims. She referred to the YouTube videos of the incident where she said that the protestors were kicked in the head. Hentoff expressed the opinion that the protestors provoked the violence.

During the discussion, Garcia challenged Hentoff when she asked why, as a "guardian of free speech," he chose to support Operation Rescue, an organization dedicated to ending abortion. She also said he compared the Operation Rescue members to abolitionists.

"I have never supported Operation Rescue," Hentoff responded.

Hentoff was quoted in a Feb. 6, 1989 Washington Post article as saying, "Operation Rescue, and similar demonstrations, are not violent. Entrances are blocked, and so they were in some nonviolent civil rights demonstrations. There is shouting, some of it not very civil, back and forth across the lines, but so there was in the 1960s," a passage which Garcia read at the event.

A question and answer session concluded the event.

"I'm glad it happened. It gave us the opportunity to put the real facts out," Garcia said after the discussion.

"I don't hold her [Garcia] at fault for anything. When she's doing these minor things on stage, it's really no comparison to what the Minutemen do every day," said Roy Arogyasami, a fourth-year at the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

"I thought there was a free expression of ideas and an exchange that was controversial and totally peaceful, and that's what the University is about," Eisenbach said.

He intends to invite guests of different political backgrounds and beliefs to participate in his discussion series. "Some will inspire, some will offend. Free speech, after all, is not nice and is not politically correct," he said as he introduced the discussion.