news-record.com

UNC-Chapel Hill looked like a world turned upside down one night last week.

Angry demonstrators stopped immigration opponent Tom Tancredo's speech by shouting insults, stretching a banner in front of him and, finally, bashing in a window. And they accused him of being hateful.

It was an ugly, embarrassing spectacle. Chancellor Holden Thorp apologized, reaffirmed Carolina's commitment to free expression and said offenders will be investigated for possible criminal and honor code violations.

The easy course now is to let disciplinary proceedings run their course and chalk it up to a learning experience. A few students acted irresponsibly and things got out of hand. Everyone understands that Tancredo should have been allowed to have his say and then move on. Hardly anyone would have noticed.

Unfortunately, that's not all there is to it. The same sort of thing has happened on other campuses, pointing to a larger concern: erosion of respect for freedom of speech.

This was shown in the proliferation of "speech codes" on campuses throughout the 1980s and '90s, and that spirit of censorship still lives.

"Many speech codes sought to end hate speech, which code proponents said should receive limited or no First Amendment protections," David L. Hudson Jr., research attorney for the First Amendment Center, writes on that organization's Web site. "Supporting this view were many academics who subscribed to so-called 'critical race' theory. Critical-race theorists contend that existing First Amendment jurisprudence must be changed because the marketplace of ideas does not adequately protect minorities. They charge that hate speech subjugates minority voices and prevents them from exercising their own First Amendment rights."

A perfect expression of that theory is presented in "An Open Letter to Chancellor Holden Thorp" by Billie Murray, who describes herself as a "doctoral candidate and teaching fellow in the Department of Communication Studies specializing in the rhetoric of social protest." She attended last week's event, in which some of her students took part. Her letter is posted on the Web site of Students for a Democratic Society at UNC-Chapel Hill.

"While I am of the view that as a democratic society we must be tolerant of dissenting views, in no way does this mean that all speech promotes democratic ends or should be tolerated," she wrote. "Put simply, some stories are better than others. The litmus test for these 'better stories' include those that promote tolerance, acceptance, social justice, equality, and yes, free speech. The rhetoric espoused by YWC and Mr. Tancredo does not promote tolerance of difference and silences those who are 'different.' Why then should we be tolerant of a rhetoric that in no way promotes the goals of a democracy and that creates a culture of fear and hate? Hate speech silences free speech."

YWC is Youth for Western Civilization, which has a reportedly tiny membership at Carolina and invited Tancredo. The UNC-Chapel Hill Students for a Democratic Society calls YWC a "white supremacist organization."

While SDS, in its own statement, said it did not mean to stop Tancredo from speaking, its affiliate at UNC-Asheville sent an approving message: "The heroic actions of UNC-Chapel Hill SDS stand as a shining example of the progressive fight against hate and racism that exists here in the United States. We will continue to battle these abhorrent ideas at every turn and salute UNC-Chapel Hill's great blow against bigotry."

Despite the noble-sounding ideals, this is totalitarian thinking. Every repressive regime justifies silencing dissent by claiming a higher purpose. Such attitudes suppose a right to set the correct values for all and to decide which speech violates those values. These arbiters of virtue, then, entitle themselves to shout down those who threaten their views. In their upside-down reasoning, they champion a favored group's "free speech" by silencing others whom they can't abide.

This time, they decided that opposition to illegal immigration and access to higher education by unauthorized residents is so vile that it can't be spoken.

What Tancredo might have said, however, is beside the point. Those who disagree should answer him in debate, not deny him the opportunity to speak and others the freedom to listen and decide. Shouting louder than someone might intimidate, but it rarely enlightens.

It's a shame intelligent people on college campuses believe the First Amendment only protects speech that suits them. They have it upside down. It's meant to allow even speech they hate.