Michelle Malkin: Sharia creep on campus

Michelle Malkin: Sharia creep on campus:

"Showing profound disregard for free speech and freedom of the press, Tufts
University has found a conservative student publication guilty of harassment and
creating a hostile environment for publishing political satire. Despite
explicitly promising to protect controversial and offensive expression in its
policies, the Tufts Committee on Student Life decided yesterday to punish the
student publication The Primary Source (TPS) for printing two articles that
offended African-American and Muslim students on campus. The Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has spearheaded the defense of TPS,
is now launching a public campaign to oppose Tufts’ outrageous actions.
“We
now know that Tufts’ promises of free expression are hollow,” FIRE President
Greg Lukianoff said. “By punishing political expression—the type of expression
at the very core of the right to free speech—Tufts has shown that, in spite of
its promises, it has no regard for its students’ fundamental rights. Such
hypocrisy must not go unchallenged.”"

I have a couple of concerns about this issue.

One is the slow loss of our ability to speak freely by movements on the left that want every word that is said to be unoffensive to everyone. The Freedom of Speech is not the freedom to say what is popular, that is a freedom no one needs. The Freedom of Speech is the freedom to say what is un-popular, the idea being that the strongest ideas will lead and the weakest will fall on their own weight.

Two, I wonder honestly if the same action would be taken if the target had been Christian, instead of Muslim. I am not a Christian and I am not trying to put forward some Christian victim idea, but just question the equality with which this is being administered.

Three how large does a group have to be to be offended and thus have the right that speech be limited on them?

Four, many of these groups are groups that are involved in subjects that need to be honestly discussed. If we are talking about the land of Israel, we cannot have an honest discussion if every point made against Israel is going to be label hate speech. The same could be said about Islam, the world should have a discussion about what is Islam and what is the role that it can play in the modern world. The Christian church went through a transformation, when it had to adjust to a new place in the world - perhaps Islam needs to do the same. However, if every call for reform is going to be label Islamophobia then the discussion is going to go no where.