Politically Correct Students Would Censor “Hate Speech”

From Frontpage Milwaukee, a column from one Edgar Mendez who forthrightly states that Walid Shoebat, who recently spoke at UWM should have been censored.

When the MSA asked for the support of a student group that I am a member of in the form of signing a petition protesting the event, we were forced to make a quick decision. We decided not to sign the petition. As a group it was an easy decision to make. As an individual my decision was much tougher. In fact I will say right now that I regret the position we took. When a member of my student org asked someone from the MSA to explain their position on the event they said “Shoebat coming here to speak on Islam is like the KKK coming up here and giving a speech on race.” That thought has been reverberating in my mind ever since.

What would be my position of free speech if the Klan were coming to town? How about if the Montana Freemen were giving a speech on immigration on campus? It would make me sick to my stomach to know that they were going to be on campus, and it would make me downright irate if I knew that the students’ segregated fees were being used to host such an event.

Messages of hate and ignorance have no place on our campus or in our society. They help perpetuate stereotypes. Stereotypes cause damage both in the long and the short term.

It would be nice to believe that this is just a naïve student. But in reality, he has probably been taught to think this way by faculty, especially if he is a major in some victim studies department, or in the humanities.

Then there is a fellow who is part of a group calling itself “Jews Against Islamophobic Hate Speech.” According to him, “there is a huge amount [sic] of us who believe in equality, believe in respect for others and who don’t really also want this kind of angry, kind of provocative hate speech on campus.”

There is no reason to think that politically correct students at Marquette are any more tolerant. The president of the Gay/Straight Alliance, after all, said that no speaker should be allowed on campus who opposed gay marriage.

That too would have been “hate speech.”

The irony, of course, is that the real hate speech is coming from the would-be censors.