by Richard M. Berthold
Daily Lobo columnist
While politicians of all stripes condemned them, President Lee Bollinger and Columbia University struck a blow to free speech by inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the bizarre president of Iran, to speak on their campus. Bollinger was right to challenge Iran's repressive government in his introduction of Ahmadinejad, but my faculty colleagues always scolded me for delivering personal insults, saying that it was "unprofessional for an academic." Apparently not for the president of Columbia who, incidentally, got one thing wrong: Hamas was not created by Iran, but by Israeli intelligence, which wanted to challenge Yasser Arafat's Fatah.
History, including our own, has amply demonstrated what an extremely fragile commodity freedom of expression is. It is continually challenged not only by dictators and theocrats, but also by the governments and even the citizens of free societies. And most appalling, in the last 40 years, it has been under constant assault on the American university campus, which ought to be a bastion of free speech.
Limiting freedom of speech is in the interest of any authority, whether the organization be a government, a corporation or a university. No authority wants a bad image or public embarrassment, and while UNM permitted me to say pretty much anything I wanted in my classes - unlike many more prestigious and politically correct institutions - the moment that speech brought negative attention from the community, administrative concern for free speech flew straight out the window.
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Far more threatening to free expression is patriotism, at least in its more unthinking, flag-waving form, which is unfortunately its usual manifestation. National security is one of the mortal enemies of free speech, challenging critical comment even in a society like ours where it is guaranteed. Remember the words of Ari Fleischer, President Bush's second press secretary, during the hysteria of Sept. 11: "Americans must be careful what they say." War, or the illusion of war, will inevitably undermine free speech, since criticism of the government, the war or the military will be instantly perceived as unpatriotic and treasonous, and politicians of every kind will jump on the patriotic bandwagon of repression. In the wake of 9/11, I was amazed how many people spoke to me of all the bloodshed to defend American freedoms while simultaneously denying me one of those self-same freedoms. If the quality of a democracy depends upon an educated electorate, then we are in serious trouble.
With the exception of the 9/11 affair, however, virtually all the challenges to my free speech at UNM have come from the left, in a truly American version of stifling freedom through good intentions. Typical of contemporary America, especially on the university campus, we have attacked bigotry and racism by simply attempting to ban the language of prejudice, to establish speech codes that would prohibit "hate speech." But the Constitution does not provide the right to go through life without being offended, and in any case, who gets to compile the list of prohibited expression? Our fear of words, rather than what is behind them, has already led to silliness like the "f-word" and the "n-word." Doesn't everyone who sees or hears these expressions immediately think of the words they represent?
And "hate crimes"? Is this not punishing someone for what he thinks?
While our legal system has always made distinctions with regard to intent, we are now demanding that punishment be determined in part by what the criminal was thinking when he committed the crime - a very dangerous idea in any society. In effect, the system will now punish you not just for a crime, but for being a bigot while you commit it, which is certainly at odds with a free society where everyone has the right to be as much of a bigot or jerk as he pleases.
There are grey areas of course, but in essence, true free expression is virtually unlimited. Only speech that creates an immediate physical danger may be legitimately barred, and that which is merely offensive or disgusting is completely protected. After all, it is precisely the unpopular, the odious and the plain stupid who most need the protection of the First Amendment. The glory of free expression is precisely that you and I and the white supremacists and the Black Muslims and the evangelical Christians may all say whatever noxious, racist or nutty things we wish to. The other side of the coin, the generally forgotten burden of free expression, is that we must all tolerate such crap.
