The hate speech practiced by the Muslim Student Union at UCI is well known. Also well known is the UCI Administration’s repeated statements that the Muslim Student Union has freedom of speech rights to organize such events as ‘Holocaust in the Holy Land.’ They are right. Free speech has more protection at a public university than perhaps at any other location; even administrators who find the Muslim Student Union despicable agree that they have a right to organize events full of hate. Indeed, though speakers cannot incite listeners to violence against a specified individual, they do have the right to incite generalized hatred of Jews and Zionists.
But that does not mean that the University Administration is bound to silence. University presidents at several campuses have embraced the opportunity to denounce hate speech. In September 2002, Harvard President Lawrence Summers issued a memorable speech citing the upturn in anti-Semitic incidents and noting that supposedly progressive universities were taking part in actions that were anti-Semitic in effect if not in intent. Faculty and students calling for divestiture from firms investing in Israel, but from nowhere else, offer one example.
Chancellor Berdahl of UC-Berkeley signed a letter published in The New York Times warning against extreme anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish activity on campus. (UCI's chancellor at the time, Ralph Cicerone, refused to sign the letter.) In September 2002 the president of the University of Michigan, Mary Sue Coleman, concerned about a forthcoming conference which featured vehemently anti-Zionist speakers, issued a statement saying: This conference is sponsored by a student organization, following established University procedures for holding events on campus ... The agenda of the conference represents the views of the organizers and not the University of Michigan.
Faced with another anti-Zionist conference (planned by New Jersey Solidarity), Richard L. McCormick, President of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, stated .For myself, I find abhorrent some elements of NJ Solidarity's mission. In its mission statement, NJ Solidarity expresses its opposition to Israel's right to exist and supports Palestinians human right to resist occupation and oppression by any means necessary. These views are in conflict with my own and, I believe, with the majority of the university community. He went on to state: Freedom of expression must not be used to incite hatreds or demonize individuals and groups.
In contrast, UCI has stood silently as speeches espousing violence were delivered on campus. One such occurrence was in spring 2002, at a forum which then-chancellor Cicerone attended. A panelist, Visiting Professor James Sterba, spent his allotted time justifying suicide bombings against civilians. No one from the Administration in attendance ever distanced himself from such a view. In winter 2004 and again during the week of May 17, 2004, UCI witnessed a public lecture by Amir Abdel Malik Ali, a known hate-monger invited by the Muslim Student Union during its Anti-Oppression Week and during its Anti-Zionism/Zionist Awareness Week. Mr. Ali had the honor of making his hateful speech from a lectern emblazoned with the UCI emblem. Fortunately, the UCI Administration no longer allows such implicit approval. But the Administration does continue its practice of not enforcing its own rules when they are violated by the Muslim Student Union. For example, the Muslim Student Union was allowed to erect a massive Apartheid Wall on a public walkway, though University policy forbids even the placement of paper posters on public walkways.
UCI continues in other ways to aid and abet anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli activity. This year, UCI honored Ms.Vanessa Zuabi with the Outstanding Community Service award at its 2006 Lauds & Laurels Awards ceremony. When Ms. Zuabi was vice president of the Society of Arab Students, the group organized a rally in May 2004, purportedly to demonstrate unity against hate crimes. The rally came a week after the group's anti-Israel cardboard wall was destroyed. Jewish student group leaders approached the leaders of SAS and expressed sympathy about the destruction of the wall, noting that they had suffered a similar incident the year before, when their Holocaust memorial was destroyed. The Jewish student groups expressed their interest in showing their solidarity in the cause of peace by participating in the rally with SAS and the rest of the UCI community. Had Ms. Zuabi and the rest of the SAS leadership truly been interested in promoting peace and in bringing the campus community together, she and her fellow group members would have accepted this overture. Instead, the Jewish student groups were told that they were not welcome, and unlike other groups on campus, were not allowed to speak at the rally. Furthermore, a rally organized by the Society of Arab Students had a poster with a drawing equating the Star of David to a swastika. The week after ‘Holocaust in the Holy Land,’ UCI announced that Ms. Zuabi would be honored as the student speaker for the commencement ceremony of the School of Social Sciences In short, UCI honored a person who had engaged in anti-Semitic activity.
Nevertheless, there is hope. On May 30, 2006, Chancellor Drake issued a public statement, saying “Make no mistake: I find hate speech abhorrent. It is inconsistent with advancing understanding or dialogue...I ask you to join me in renouncing hate speech as a form of expression....” Though the timing of the statement suggests that it was issued in response to Holocaust in the Holy Land, the statement does not explain who engaged in hate speech, or who were its victims. I wish a future statement would.
From Standwithus.org Amihai Glazer is a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine. He received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1978.
