It’s Israel Apartheid Week at my alma mater right now. Most universities allow an astonishing latitude to bigots, provided they are of the socialist, left-wing variety. I fondly recall those university moments when students would hand out the The Socialist Worker… but enough reminiscing.
My thought is this: Let freedom reign. Only where the ideas have merit will they take hold. Where bad ideas take hold, fight them.
Freedom has not reigned for pro-life groups on campus.
And don’t go equating pro-lifers with anti-semites, either. I just find it odd that the former have trouble expressing themselves on campus when the latter don’t. If the argument against pro-lifers is that their point of view is offensive, surely we ought to apply that same criterion to people who think The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a reliable work of non-fiction.
Update, February 16, 2008: George Jonas eloquently gets at my point in this column. He translates UofT’s attempt to explain the anti-semitic event away:
Political fashion is our middle name. We know which side our fatwa is buttered on. We know racism that’s in demand, racism that’s tolerated and racism that’s anathema. U of T’s approach succeeds because we’re in touch with the times. We know who are likely to riot, and it isn’t the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies. You’re listening to the Voice of the U of T. Shalom. Salaam. Peace. Boycott Israel, and have a nice day.
Sounds about right to me.
by 
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