Captain Ed has a post on what free speech means and what it doesn't. He quotes this Jonah Goldberg column, where in Goldberg explains what free speech isn't.
(W)hether you favored or opposed the teeny dictator’s lecture: Free speech had nothing to do with it.
You have to stay on your toes, like Ahmadinejad at a urinal, to grasp this point since it’s so often confused in our public discourse: Free-speech rights aren’t violated when private institutions deny speech in their name. My free-speech rights have not been denied by the fact that for years the Democratic National Committee has refused to invite me to speak at its confabs. Nor would it be censorship if this newspaper dropped my column. Freedom of speech also includes the right not to say something.
In other words, had Columbia denied Ahmadinejad a platform, it would have been exercising freedom of speech just as much as it was when it invited him to give his prison-house philosopher spiel.
I've been reading arguments on a leftwing site excoriating conservatives as "fearing" Ahmedinejab's speech. I tried to explain that there are other reasons besides fear that one might want to discourage that thug's speaking tour, but it's clear that for some on the left, any consequence--including withholding funding from the school--is "stifling free speech." Sorry to break it to the moonbats but (1) the story is probably merely grandstanding by a single legislator and (2) one is not entitled to endless streams of taxpayer money and such funds can be reduced for any reason, including dissatisfaction with the administration of said university.
Same moonbats were apoplectic at the idea that inviting Ahmedinejab to speak was tantamount to endorsement of his ideas. But as Captain Ed points out, allowing a speaker at your university is similar to publishing and, in this case, it means Columbia University was happy to have its name and reputation associated with a man who denies having homosexuals in his country and advocates nuclear destruction of a fellow country. It's really hard to get away from the fact that if you invite someone to speak at your institution, there's a level of endorsement implicit in that. Particularly since Columbia has been rather selective about who gets to speak (a murderous wacko) and who may not (military recruiters).
Indeed, it was at Columbia University that these tolerant liberals actually stormed the stage and denied the founder of the Minutemen the right to speak. But I suppose to the moonbats, that is perfectly permissible. No government action there. It's all right for the school to essentially endorse such behavior.
I tried pointing out to selfsame moonbats that they favor censorship and government intervention when it is speech with which they disagree. When ABC was planning to air The Path to 9/11, liberals, from wackos in the street to the Clintons themselves, were hysterical about such a film being aired and even enlisted government officials in an attempt to prevent the film being shown. If that's not textbook censorship, I'm just not sure what else counts.
Finally, I also pointed out that the same liberals excoriating any state action against Columbia love it when liberal legislators try to shut down abortion clinic protests using every law in the book (and a few which aren't). It's amazing to me that the same people who were unglued about a docudrama that didn't tow the Clinton line don't see using racketeering laws against abortion clinic protesters as abuse of power. But they don't. Instead, they argue that clinic protesters interfere with the rights of women to obtain abortions or try to shut down clinics or threaten violence. But nobody is endorsing violence, and the same groups that supposedly want to ban violent clinic protesters want to banish peaceful ones as well. Their tactics are not aimed at those disturbing the peace; their tactics are aimed at those who have the audacity to speak out in ways liberals dislike.
No, we know liberals are not above using the government to control speech. That's why liberals love the Fairness Doctrine. If they can impose that rule on talk radio, they are sure most conservative radio shows will dry up and be gone.
So I don't buy for a moment that it is government interference that bothers liberals so much about the Columbia University situation. What bothers them is that someone might use government interference on speech they don't mind.
Sam Schulman points out why Lee Bollinger is a coward hiding behind the U.S. military--the one he won't allow to recruit on his campus--to slap at Ahmedinejab.
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