By Brian Carnell

Sunday, June 8, 2003

When New York Times reporter Christopher Hedges was heckled so severely while giving an anti-war commencement address at Rockford College in Illinois, many left-liberal web sites decried the lack of tolerance for dissenting views. Hedges himself appeared on Democracy Now ascribing it a horrific groupthink,

You know, as I looked out on the crowd, that is exactly what my book is about. It is about the suspension of individual conscience, and probably consciousness, for the contagion of the crowd for that euphoria that comes with patriotism. The tragedy is that - and I've seen it in conflict after conflict or society after society that plunges into war - with that kind of rabid nationalism comes racism and intolerance and a dehumanization of the other. And it's an emotional response. People find a kind of ecstasy, a kind of belonging, a kind of obliteration of their alienation in that patriotic fervor that always does come in war time.

But as Boston Globe columnist Cathy young notes, what is most striking about the controversy is just how hypocritical left-liberals tend to be when it comes to free speech and things like the appropriateness of heckling speakers giving commencement speeches. Young writes about Foundation for Individual Rights in Education head Thor Halvorssen,

"Heckling is a form of censorship, and it is not acceptable," says Thor Halvorssen, chief executive officer of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which defends free speech in the academy regardless of politics.

However, Halvorssen sees a double standard in the hand-wringing. How many of the people who bemoan the death of free speech in "George Bush's America" have criticized campus codes which restrict speech deemed offensive to women or minorities? How many have spoken out against the suppression of dissenting views from the right? On some college campuses, entire print runs of conservative student newspapers have been stolen and burned, with no punishment for the perpetrators. Speakers such as Ward Connerly, the African-American activist who opposes racial preferences, have been shouted down on numerous occasions.

In fact it says a lot about the current level of support for free speech among liberal-leftists that it is FIRE rather than a liberal group that has finally done the obviously and begun systematically suing public universities to force them to abolish unconstitutional speech codes. Young offers a brilliant example of the hypocrisy related to free speech that dominates too many campuses,

<blockqutoe>Shortly after Sept. 11, Ann Ferguson, former chair of the university's [Massachusetts-Amherst] Women's Studies department, circulated a statement deploring pressures that kept faculty and students from voicing unpopular opinions such as opposition to the war in Afghanistan. Since Ferguson had earlier championed a speech code targeting broad categories of "offensive" expression, [Daphne] Patai e-mailed her, asking to explain this contradiction. Ferguson's response? "Sometimes speech is harmful action, and when so should not be automatically protected."

It is also interesting that only some commencement addresses are apparently worthy of being free of hecklers.

For example, when Pres. George W. Bush gave a Commencement address at Yale University in May 2001, 170 Yale professors boycotted the ceremony and numerous students in attendance booed, hissed, made gagging signs, and held up signs in protest. According to the eyewitness account of a student who helped organize the Yale protest (emphasis added),

People booed and jeered, many turned their backs in silence, and many heckled him for the rest of the speech. It was a great show of the people's will. We have to make our voices heard loud and clear when Washington comes to us. That's what happened at Yale University.

Remember the Democracy Now show after that protest, with the handwringing about groupthink and civility toward people with different political views? Me neither.

In fact, a year later when Bush gave a commencement speech at Ohio State University, the administration made it clear it would not tolerate persistent heckling or blocking the view of others with signs. It told students in no uncertain terms that such activities would result in removal from the auditorium.

Was this applauded as a way to ensure the right of commencement speakers not to be shouted down by an unruly mob? Of course not. As The Progressive so subtly put it, it was McCarthy-ist suppression.

Which brings us full circle. Does someone get booed and heckled while trying to present a politically unpopular view? That's the brutal suppression of dissent. Does someone get kicked out of a commencement for booing and heckling and trying to suppress the presentation of a politically unpopular view? That's the brutal suppression of dissent.

Typically consistent left wing take on freedom of speech.

(By the way, for the record, my view is that the hecklers who disrupted Hedges' speech should have been treated on the Ohio State University model -- they should have been warned once and then removed by authorities from the auditorium.)

Sources:

The Tyranny of Hecklers. Cathy Young, Boston Globe, June 2, 2003.

School Cuts off New York Times Reporter Chris Hedges' Anti-War Commencement Speech. Democracy Now.

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