Staff Editorial | Recent speakers prompt questions of campus dialogue

Oct. 22 marked the start of Islamofascism Awareness Week, led by conservative author and activist David Horowitz. During this irreverently-named week, far-right conservative speakers discussed their often incendiary and even hateful views of Islam and Islam in America. Speakers included the infamously intolerant Ann Coulter and Robert Spencer (founder and director of the Jihad Watch and author of The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion). Coulter spoke at Tulane University on Oct. 22, and Spencer spoke at Brown on Oct. 24, among other schools.

In light of the controversy over these speakers and the President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s recent and much-publicized speech at Columbia, the Vassar community should consider the kinds of speakers who come to our own campus. Speakers who affirm many students’ liberal beliefs about pluralism and multiculturalism (such as John Amaechi) have their place and should be welcome—but if we as college students limit ourselves to exclusively hosting speakers who reflect the majority of the student body’s perspective, are we simply having a conversation of agreement? And do these kinds of affirming conversations move us significantly forward in discourse about race, tolerance, and politics of difference, or could they eventually become counterproductive and stagnate us?

Bringing controversial speakers to a college campus, one may argue, does not mean endorsing their views. The fact that Ann Coulter and Robert Spencer spoke at Tulane and Brown respectively (and at other schools) does not mean that Tulane and Brown ascribe to Coulter or Spencer’s beliefs. However, giving an individual a public forum in which to make remarks may be interpreted as giving their views undue support, even if the college only intends to promote debate and discussion on campus. One way to alleviate such a concern would be to include such voices in a panel, so that their views would be juxtaposed against others who occupy different places on the political spectrum.

There is a thin line between promoting free speech and providing a platform for hate speech. Speakers that threaten physical violence against a group should not be welcomed with open arms. Yet even those who are not always explicit about condoning physical violence against subaltern groups may indeed imply that they would support such harmful actions.

Ann Coulter, for example, is frequently characterized as a person with hateful—and dangerous—politics. While college students might be most comfortable ignoring a person such as Coulter, ignoring her will not make her views disappear. Cloistering ourselves in college and turning a deaf ear to these views may suffice for our four years in college, but by the time we graduate (if not sooner), most students will be forced to face such opinions—though perhaps in veiled form, and perhaps without the supportive community of a college to help digest (and refute) such extremist views.

The answer, of course, is not to issue a blanket endorsement of inviting speakers whose politics may threaten students. Members of a student body should not be attacked, as many Muslim students at other schools complained they were during Islamofascism Awareness Week. How can colleges and universities reconcile the issue of hosting a range speakers from across the political spectrum with the need to guard against such speakers’ presentations from deteriorating into ad hominem attacks of a subaltern group?

Perhaps for now, the answer is to ask the question. Islamofascism Awareness Week is problematic for a wide range of reasons, one of which is that it purports a single intolerant ideological view and supports rhetoric that often descends into hate speech. It serves to raise an important question about the politics attached to college speakers: put simply, if Ann Coulter, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or a similar figure were to request to come to Vassar, how would we respond? And how would we hope to respond? These questions require debate and consideration, particularly if the College seeks to cultivate the critical minds of its students—rather than just teaching students how to applaud for hearing their own views.

The staff editorial represents at least two-thirds of the 14-member editorial board.