Got Rights? Thank you Sofa,

Submitted by gary fouse (United States), Sep 15, 2007 at 17:22

First of all, I am not brave. I look at it this way. First, I am a male, albeit an aging one, 2nd, this is my country, third, being semi-retired and not needing my work at uci, I don't care what others say. It is Reut who is brave. She is a young Jewish female of Israeli origin who has regularly confronted these jerks while they are demonstrating to document their actions and words.

You are correct, free speech may be protected, but we have our free speech too, and we need to use it to speak out against the purveyors of hatred, even if it means we are called Islamophobes. Some of UCIs leaders seem to make a moral equivalency between the hate speech at UCI and the criticism from us that follows it. They are wrong.

I don't want to say no other faculty are on our side. I have met at least one. According to him, most of the voices on our side are retired professors or those teaching in the sciences. The folks in the Humanities, not surprisingly, don't speak out, probably since many of them probably sympathize with the left, or they just don't want to get involved. In my view, they are spineless.

What is important in your question is that it is vital that the public is aware of what happens on our university campuses. Many times, the mainstream media will not put a lot of coverage on it because it goes against their agenda. Therefore, we have to do it ourselves. As for UCI parents, I don't know. Like I said, most students don't pay a lot of attention to it because they are busy getting an education. That does not mean that these activities should be ignored. If UCI doesn't address this issue in a meaningful way, I have feared for some time that we may have a tragedy on our campus, and so many will be asking why.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".