UMass Protests Free Speech

Campus Report ^ | March 19, 2009 | Bethany Stotts

[bs9021]

UMass Protests Free Speech

by: Bethany Stotts, March 19, 2009

“You know I feel like I’m in a time machine...I’m back at Boston University in 1969,” said Don Feder, editor of Accuracy In Media’s Boycott the New York Times, at a recent speaking engagement. “As I said, that’s it,” he said and left the microphone.

Feder’s comments were quickly followed with cheers and cat-calls by students and protestors at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. According to the Socialist Worker, approximately 150 UMass Amherst students and community members celebrated their ability to frustrate a paid guest speaker whom they argued was guilty of hate speech.

“Hate speech leads to hate crimes,” read one female student’s sign. Also in evidence were posters which read “Abolish hate,” “free speech [does not equal] hate speech,” and one which defined hate crimes.

Later, as Feder considered whether to stop his talk, protestors chanted in unison “Speak, Don speak!” and, later, “Don’t come back! Don’t come back!”

Feder was invited to UMass to speak on the issue of hate crime legislation for a lecture entitled, “Hate Crimes: It’s Not What You Think.” However, if members of the UMass Coalition Against Hate are to be believed, those who purvey hate on campus shouldn’t be allowed to speak. “On March 11, around 150 anti-racist students and community members confronted conservative writer Dan Feder [sic] at the University of Massachusetts and forced him to end his speech early,” writes Michael Fiorentino for the Socialist Worker, which defines itself as “a national newspaper founded in 1977 and published by the International Socialist Organization [ISO].”

“Feder was invited by the UMass Republican Club to give a talk that essentially denied the existence of hate crimes,” he asserts....

[SkyDancer]

Enough Said ....

[OneWingedShark]

“We’re against free speech.”?

[LuxAerterna]

Funny, I’ve never heard of any “hate speech” exception to the 1rst Amendment. And if UMass was consistent, most of rowdy protestors would certainly be more guilty of “hate speech” than Don Feder. “Hate speech” is simply a red herring used by campus thought police to silence dissent.

[Venturer]

We keep letting liberals control our Campuses and this is what we will get throughout America.

[Oldpuppymax]

Conservatives practicing free speech always represent a danger to the left. Hence political correctness, the Fairness Doctrine and “hate speech.” Leftists must silence those who make them look foolish in a discussion...meaning anybody who tells the truth or brings up facts!

[Vermont Lt]

Thank God most of the kids at the Zoo would have been too drunk to attend this crap.

Amherst if the weirdo capital of Mass. It makes the bunch from Cambridge look like pikers.

[fwdude]

If the marxist-students don’t like the speaker or the speech given, they shouldn’t attend. At least, this is the solution I always hear given by the Marxists....