WSJ Duo

One thing The Doughty Traveler is not good about is linking, particularly to other stories. So, I'll remedy that in some small way with a pair of featured (and free!) articles from the WSJ...or perhaps OpinionJournal, but they're good and Dow Jonesy nonetheless.

The inestimable Peggy Noon takes on recent free speech issues:

At Columbia University, members of the Minutemen, the group that patrols the U.S. border with Mexico and reports illegal crossings, were asked to address a forum on immigration policy. As Jim Gilchrist, the founder, spoke, angry students stormed the stage, shouting and knocking over chairs and tables. "Having wreaked havoc," said the New York Sun, they unfurled a banner in Arabic and English that said, "No one is ever illegal." The auditorium was cleared, the Minutemen silenced. Afterward a student protester told the Columbia Spectator, "I don't feel we need to apologize or anything. It was fundamentally a part of free speech. . . . The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration."

While Noonan goes on to talk about a number of other issues, I don't mind commenting on this particular issue. If there's one thing radical students do not stand for it is free speech.

In my own experience, I remember this past spring when the Objectivist Club decided to host a panel and "unveil" the Danish cartoons that caused all sorts of silliness to break out in the Middle East. The students from the MSU (Muslim Student Union) rolled in more than halfway through the panel and dominated the Q&A. While they didn't rush the stage, the tension was enormous. The police presence for the event was huge...you don't call the coppers unless you're worried someone's going to get violent, and something tells me no one expected a bunch of Randians to go wild. The Muslim students were in argument and action demonstrated their hostility to free speech: "you can have free speech and not use it," and repeatedly refusing to stop talking after their allotted time was up for questions.

Regardless, before I get too far into my jeremiad on the state of free speech in academia, I just noticed I have to catch a train, so that I can go to a cocktail hour at the very same conference center where those Muslim students were getting up in arms. What a coincidence.

No, but seriously, I have to catch a train. Later.