“If I recall, they were not kicked off campus,...”
In the first place, their spot on campus was not provided by the university in the way that space is ordinarily provided to student groups. It wasn't provided to them at all. They rented space on a first-come, first-save basis from the campus bar.
I don't think they'd have lasted 20 minutes if, instead of renting the bar in the basement of Memorial Hall, they'd gotten an auditorium in the science center or someplace.
They had a rental contract.
“Kicking them off campus” would have meant canceling a legally-binding contract, which would have been one step further down the road than denying them previously-promised free space.
Put the shoe on the other foot - what if Harvard had unwittingly allowed a pro-life group focused on showing graphic pictures of abortions to rent the bar? What would you say if Harvard tore up THAT rental contract?
Yet, in the second place, the administration LED BY THE PRESIDENT orchestrated their own campaign against the night schoolers, from the outset calling their actions also sorts of mean, pejorative names.
Do you REALLY think the night schoolers gave up their PAID location out of the goodness of their hearts? Or do you think that perhaps there were some private conversations along the lines of:
“You night schoolers have put us in an untenable position. We propose that you should ‘voluntarily’ do the right thing, and we will publicly back your right to have met in the bar, even while we kick you in the teeth for being a bunch of gob-smacked, brainless bigots. The alternative is... well,... you may not really want us to discuss the alternative with you folks, just right now. We're sure you're going to do the right thing.”
As it is, it's pretty clear, if only implicit, that the university HAD drawn the line at the use of an unconsecrated host. This gives them the needed cover when they DO ban an actual Koran-burning. But I suspect a group that rented the bar to burn the Koran in effigy would receive the same treatment the night schoolers got - defend in principle their right to do that, but turn up the heat so hot, so fast, that eventually the frogs would jump out of the pot.
Other groups on campus have, over the years, engaged in activities that have been seen as “dehumanizing” of other groups. I've cited a pro-life campaign from a few years back that, to me, looked innocent and sweet. But pro-aborts on campus were outraged. I imagine that the not-insignificant number of Harvardians on campus who have actually had an abortion may have been personally convicted in their heart of sin, of murder. You know the reactions of folks who feel that conviction. If they're not ready to repent, their feelings can be very hostile, very angry. They may feel very, very wounded and attacked.
Yet, official Harvard said nothing.
This is not a school with a faultless record on these issues. But it is a school that struggles to be fair, in its own eyes, and in my opinion, they didn't fall far from the mark in the present case.
Ultimately, xzins, the issue you raise begs the question, "who sets the limits?"
I promise you, it's no longer you or me or anyone like you or me. We do well to encourage the broadest limits possible, otherwise we will find those limits applied to us with increasing frequency.
sitetest
I think "death speech" is a fair limit, sitetest. All I ask you is to pray about what I was trying to communicate and not what this feeble brain of mine sometimes seems to be stumbling inexactly to put into words.