After Columbia delivered wrist-slaps to the students who stormed the stage and shut down speaker invited by the College Republicans, a friend of mine sent this letter to Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger. I thought it was well put, and he has allowed me to post it here:

Mr. Lee C. Bollinger
President
Columbia University
535 West 116th Street
202 Low Library, Mail Code 4309
New York, NY 10027

Dear President Bollinger:

As a member of the Board of Advisors of the Columbia Political Union (CPU), I was saddened and dismayed today to read that your office has decided to impose an empty and symbolic punishment to the students who forcefully prevented a representative of the “Minutemen Project” from speaking at a forum last October.

Although I did not attend the forum, I took great comfort from your swift assurances that no one at the school would have “the right or the power to use the cover of protest to silence speakers” and that your office would investigate the matter thoroughly. I was therefore chagrined to learn today that the offending students quietly were given the lightest possible punishment for a mere violation of the University’s Rules of Conduct; a gentle warning that will reportedly expire from the students’ transcripts in a short time.

It is a sad day when one of our city’s most prestigious institutions, one that I feel a strong connection to by virtue of my association with the CPU as an inaugural member of its Board of Advisors, would view an assault to the right of others to express their views as a minor case of disorderly conduct. I agreed with you when you stated that “we must speak out to deplore a disruption that threatens the central principle to which we are institutionally dedicated, namely to respect the rights of others to express their views,” and urge you to remain committed to these ideals by action rather than by words.

I have no interest in defending anything that the featured speaker might have said at the forum and am not writing to express whether or not I agree or disagree with these views. I’d like to believe that anyone who is invited to your campus to speak should be able to do so without fear or intimidation, regardless of the severity of my personal disagreement with those views, and I pray that I never allow myself to become inconsistent in the administration of that standard. Free societies are not made stronger by the ability of one group to censor another but rather by the free exchange of ideas and dissent.

As a First Amendment scholar, you surely would agree that demonstrating, organizing forums featuring opposing viewpoints, and even the occasional heckling to spoken words are perfectly acceptable ways to display disagreement and dissent. Taking action to prevent words from being spoken, however, is another matter altogether. Frankly, the ad hominem behavior of your students was a disservice to those who might share their disagreement with the invited speaker’s positions and Columbia University’s appeasement of their recalcitrance is an utter disgrace.

Unfortunately, one could easily perceive that your administration is content to allow violence and intimidation on its campus to silence those whom a few believe do not have the right to be heard. It is your obligation to protect these rights, as you had previously committed to doing, and thereby avoid setting a vague and highly arbitrary precedent that presages an atmosphere where similar thuggery will be allowed to prevail and thrive.

With best wishes.

Sincerely,

Marcus Cederqvist