Horowitz Speech Disrupted (And Reaction from Socialist Prof)

A speech about academic freedom turned into a "violation of First Amendment rights," according to Dana Cloud, a member of the International Socialist Organization.

Six people, including one juvenile, were arrested Wednesday night after protesting David Horowitz's speech at Townes Hall at the UT School of Law. The Texas Federalist Society hosted the meeting and invited Horowitz, a right-wing advocate and author of the Academic Bill of Rights, to speak.

Opposition groups were holding signs and speaking out during Horowitz's speech on Wednesday, but when they were told to stop speaking, some took out noisemakers to mark their disapproval of the speaker. Three females and three males were arrested and then jailed under charges of disrupting a meeting or procession - a Class B misdemeanor. The subjects were not UT students.

Cloud, an associate professor in communication studies, attended the speech and witnessed the arrests. She said the situation was ironic.

"Horowitz claims to be for free speech, but he is actually on a campaign to discredit and ruin progressive intellectuals," Cloud said. "In the name of free speech, they are basically calling the police on protesters."

Victoria Corinne Cloud, no relation to Dana Cloud, and Dylan Wayne Vicknair were both arrested for physical action - the use of an air horn. Michael Stephen Hardin, Catharina Elizabeth Perry and Scott Crow were arrested for verbal utterances - yelling and arguing with a speaker. All six activists were released late Thursday afternoon.

Anastasia Breloff, the president of the Texas Federalist Society, and other officers from the society said they warned activists at least three times, each time reiterating the possibility of arrest.

"Protesters chose to disrupt Mr. Horowitz's lecture by moving threateningly toward the stage, shouting at the speaker and blowing foghorns and other noise-making devices," Breloff said in a statement.

Melissa Hotze, assistant vice president of events, was sitting in the last row of the auditorium and said she was frustrated that the protesters would not sit down until the question and answer period to voice their opinions.

"When he was at other campuses, people were throwing pies at his face. We just alerted the UTPD that he was coming, and there might be potential of things happening," Hotze said.

According to Hotze, Horowitz's point was that "universities have a very liberal faculty, and if you are a conservative, you are going to be penalized from your academic freedom."

Horowitz encourages students to report their professors who openly silence the opinion of conservatives in universities.

"The irony of squelching such a protest with police on a meeting on free speech is the fact that Horowitz is part of a growing trend, the new McCarthyisms - disciplining progressive faculty," Cloud said.

I was one of two dozen people who protested the appearance of right-wing ideologue David Horowitz at the Law School Wednesday night. (University of Texas at Austin)

Although the subject of the meeting was freedom of expression, and Horowitz routinely accuses campus progressives of silencing different points of view, he set police on protesters who expressed their disagreement in the style and tradition of unruly civil disobedience. The ironic message: Shut up so I can talk about free speech. Indignant, Horowitz refused to begin speaking about the importance of free expression so long as protesters held signs criticizing him. Six young protesters were arrested and jailed.

Horowitz and his ilk pursue the agenda of silencing the left, all in the name of free speech. He attempts to whip up fear of tyrannical radical professors who, he says, indoctrinate what he sees as hapless, immature undergraduates. (Apparently, he hasn't met my students, whom I respect as adults capable of speaking for themselves and making their own judgments.)

In fact, his crusade for free expression is a cynical sham: Horowitz maintains a blacklist of left intellectuals and activists, arguing that critics of war and oppression should not have the right to teach or protest. His is a freedom of expression reserved for conservatives who - in spite of their side's holding inordinate economic, political, and coercive power - feel marginalized in the face of critical pedagogy.

However absurd and hypocritical, his efforts should be taken seriously as aligned with a series of assaults recently on academic freedom at Columbia University, University of Colorado, and City College of New York. Unfortunately, the threats to our jobs and civil rights are all too real.

As someone (among hundreds of others) whose name appears on Horowitz's Internet hit list, I wonder who the real censors are: critics of the war and feminist professors, or those who have and will use the real might of the police and the state to silence criticism and dissent? Defenders of real freedom of speech and learning must stand together against the new McCarthyism.

Dana Cloud Associate professor, Communication studies Member, International Socialist Organization

Dana L. Cloud (PhD, University of Iowa, 1992) specializes in the analysis of contemporary and popular and political culture from feminist, Marxist, and critical anti-racist perspectives. She teaches undergraduate classes in persuasion, social movements, speechwriting, and rhetorical criticism, as well as graduate courses in rhetoric and the public sphere, rhetoric and ideology, rhetoric and feminist theory, and rhetoric and popular culture. Dr. Cloud's areas of current research include the critique of therapeutic discourse, feminist and Marxist theories and politics, rhetoric of "family values," and the rhetoric of the U.S. labor movement.

It's pretty fun to sit around in a right wing chat room and bash people you don't know, isn't it? That's good civilized politics. Since you're all up in here assuming what I think and do, I thought I'd share my response to my conservative critics on the Horowitz incident. To be clear, I don't think public confrontation is the same thing as censorship. It's a good thing the activists at the Boston Tea Party didn't either.

Another key point: real censorship is calling the cops--which I have never done to silence anyone, and would not unless physically threatened.

Here's my response to people who've been sending me hate mail.

Greetings,

Thank you for writing. I have begun to get a lot of mail and have developed a standard answer to questions about my defense of protesters at Horowitz's speech. I think it is completely appropriate for people to talk back to me and I appreciate your engagement with me.

Some people have asked if they can visit my classes. You are welcome to visit my classes. However, unlike a public forum or other space where social movements break out, the classroom is a protected civil space where I would not heckle anyone; nor would I think it fair to students for someone to disrupt their learning. I have read Mr. Horowitz's statement on academic freedom, and find I meet all of his criteria for an ethical educator, by the way.

I had nothing to do with the various noisemakers of other activists, though I support their right to use them. No one approached the podium to threaten Mr. Horowitz. It is my recollection and understanding that noisemakers were employed only after the hosts of the meeting threated to arrest those who spoke. Also, many of Horowitz's supporters made noises--clapping and cheering, for example--interrupting the flow of his oration. I do understand and sympathize with verbal and other outburts (although again, I didn't make any of those myself) when a speaker says absurd things like "the proof that racism doesn't exist is that Oprah Winfrey, a black woman with a weight problem, makes a lot of money." Or "I can argue circles around any leftist in the room."

Some critics of our actions think rude behavior is inappropriate. Perhaps the mainstream today would find the Boston Tea Party innappropriate if it happened now. Perhaps you believe the British parliament is full of barbarians, since they interrupt speakers with "huzzahs" and "bahs" and boos and so on all the time.

He had the right to speak; we had the right to talk back. Democracy has always involved protest in the U.S. from the Boston Tea Party, through the ending of slavery, through civil rights and other progressive change. Being unruly is part of the tumble of democratic life, when it occurs in the open, in public. The classroom is not an ethical space for that kind of struggle. I would hope you would respect my students (you don't have to respect me) and save the heckling for a public lecture or rally. I am speaking at a rally on April 21 on the West Mall. That would be an appropriate place to heckle me.

I've been heckled many times. I've had death threats and other kinds of threats. I've had people asking for my job on a platter (oh, wait, that was Horowitz). I have NEVER called the police on anyone and would never have a heckler arrested in a public setting.

Horowitz has been confronted everywhere he goes because many faculty, students, and activists know what he's about, and it's not freedom of expression. He's on a tear to get rid of people like me. Think about this logically: the Right has most of the economic and political power in our country. The United States is the dominant power in the world. Horowitz argues that left academics with our cultural studies and powerpoint presentations are taking over. It doesn't make sense. Conservatives are not oppressed, even at the University. In U.T.'s government department, business school, advertising, aerospace engineering, geology, and many other departments, conservative thought outweighs the liberal or progressive. If Horowitz really wants "balance" at the University, perhaps he will encourage the business school to hire a socialist so they get both sides over there. My liberal and progressive colleagues go to pains to ensure freedom of student expression. The odd examples Horowitz cites are truly few and far between; not to mention many of his stories about professorial conduct are made up.

Thus, there must be some other motive for what Horowitz is up to. If you say something often enough, even if it is patently absurd, you can get a charge to stick. What we have in front of us is an attempt to build fear of left academics and others in order to monitor and discipline them. Eventually, given that Horowitz lumps progressive scholars and anti-war activists with terrorists, he might succeed in getting Homeland Security to pay us a visit. At that point, who would be the most powerful censor of all?

It's how McCarthyism started: the keeping of blacklists of suspicious persons in the name of freedom. When McCarthyists come for me, I'll be out there with signs and I'll use my voice.

You are certainly free to do the same. Again, for me the classroom is different. Politics is rowdy. I think you all who are used to throwing insults around instead of arguments can see that.

Sincerely,

Dana Cloud

"It's pretty fun to sit around in a right wing chat room and bash people you don't know, isn't it? That's good civilized politics. "

Is this the kind of inane logic you use in class? Were you a personal friend of Ronald Reagan when you were (I'm sure) bashing him for proving how dangerous and destructive communism is to humanity? Did you know David Horowitz while you were bashing him in print in that rag of a student newspaper?

Some day soon, people like us who are assets to this country will have grown tired of protecting your right to be a drain on the same society. Right now there is nothing preventing people like you from not only being worthless, but destructive. If your agenda ever gained more than the psychotic-fringe support it has, however, those of us that build this country will quickly and efficiently humiliate you to the point where it will no longer be acceptable for a higher educator to moonlight as a communist indoctrinator. Then you will have destroyed yourself as you would have done to our country. You might recognize me that day as the one laughing.

Arrowhead: Looks like the commieprof herself has joined the discussion and been a sleeper troll to boot.

P.S. If your tagline is an honest description of yourself, why the public resume of socialist? Could it be that you know the rest of the world already considers your ideas insane?

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