An Error Corrected
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has long been the foremost defender of free speech on college campuses and consequently has been a longtime ally of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in its battles with the campus left. For two decades we have sought the help of FIRE in these conflicts and have often vetted our campaigns with them beforehand to make sure we stayed on the right side of First Amendment issues. In our haste to put together a campaign to confront the jihad network on American college campuses, however, we failed to take this precaution and the result has been a slip on the way to our goal.
In a thoughtful criticism published in FIRE’s online journal The Torch, Vice President Robert Sibley chides us over the wording of a campaign announcement that should have been scrutinized more carefully before we posted it. The announcement describes our forthcoming campaign to defund campus chapters of the Muslim Students Association. In its original version it gave three reasons for defunding the MSA. In its criticism, FIRE took us to task for one of them, which called for defunding MSA chapters because they spread hatred in sponsoring speakers who have called for the execution of homosexuals and events which call for the destruction of the Jewish state. FIRE comments “While many people might strongly object to these opinions, there is no room under the First Amendment to punish a group simply for presenting or sponsoring expression that angers, offends, or even ‘incites hatred’ of someone else.” We agree. Consequently, we have removed the offending statement from the original, and posted a revised version which we believe is perfectly consonant with First Amendment requirements.
In addition to that haste that led to our unfortunate formulation, there was another factor. The ability of the Muslim Students Association to promote hate under university auspices – for example to post on the official University of Southern California website a statement calling for the extermination of the Jews – underscores the hypocrisy rampant in the present campus culture. No organization would receive university funding and university-provided offices to conduct their business if they attacked African Americans, or any other groups except Christians and Jews. Outrage at this kind of double standard led us to want to confront the university over its failure to uphold its own decency standards. Unfortunately, while the university is under no obligation to fund hate groups and hate speech, once it does so an appeal to withdraw that funding – as FIRE correctly points out – is tantamount to punishing a viewpoint, which the First Amendment forbids and which it has never been our intention to attempt. We have always welcomed intellectual debate, while deploring the gutter level to which groups like the Muslim Students Association have unfortunately taken it in recent years.
So we thank FIRE for their vigilance and accept their counsel. We have now posted a document on “The Defunding of the Muslim Student Association” which we believe removes the basis for their objection.