"A recent nationwide
study by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education found that
one of four college students couldn't name any of the freedoms
protected by the First Amendment."
Not one!
Free speech can provoke
It's a freedom worth defending even when it outrages
minorities
by Kathleen Parker
October 5, 2005
Tribune Media Services
The First Amendment has been getting a workout in
recent weeks on two college campuses -- the University of Florida and
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- where students are
learning that free speech is a messy business.
The two cases, one involving a columnist at UNC and the other a
political cartoonist at UF, have inflamed minority groups -- Muslims
and blacks, respectively -- provoking protests and debate. That's the
good news insofar as protest and debate are the currency of free
speech.
What's not such good news is that the columnist was fired, while the
Florida cartoonist has been condemned and threatened. Both students
have been virtually abandoned by university officials, some of whom
apparently are more concerned about burnishing their multiculti images
than in demonstrating the importance of a founding principle.
Tasteless, but legal
Exhibit A is Jillian Brandes, a former columnist for
The Daily Tar Heel. Her column, intended to make a case for racial
profiling in the wake of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, began
hyperbolically: "I want all Arabs to be stripped naked and
cavity-searched if they get within 100 yards of an airport."Then she
quoted several Arab students and a professor who said they wouldn't
mind being searched. Some of them subsequently claimed their remarks
had been taken out of context, an unprecedented development in
journalism history. Brandes was fired.
One could make a strong argument that Brandes' column was silly,
amateurish, lacking in taste, strident and ineffective. Being
outrageous for the sake of outrage requires no special talent. Witness
Howard Stern. But people have a clear and protected right to be both
silly and amateurish.
Brandes' editor claimed that he fired her for "journalistic
malpractice," for taking quotes out of context, not in response to
pressure. In 25 years with newspapers, I've never known anyone to be
fired when a story's subjects didn't like the way quotes were used.
Offensive or just irreverent?
In Gainesville, Fla., cartoonist Andy Marlette drew an
image that has angered black groups. Yes, a new generation has produced
another Marlette. This one is the nephew of Pulitzer Prize-winning
cartoonist Doug Marlette, whose talent as an equal-opportunity offender
apparently seeped into the family gene pool.
Marlette the Younger's cartoon in the Independent Florida Alligator was
a commentary on rapper Kanye West's remarks that "George Bush doesn't
care about black people." Marlette drew a cartoon of West holding an
oversized playing card labeled "The Race Card," with Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice saying, "Nigga Please!"
The N-word makes me cringe ... especially every time I hear Kanye West
say it. His spicy songs are liberally seasoned with the word "nigga,"
often couched in violence and obscenity. But when I imagine the
immaculate and proper Condi Rice saying it, especially to a "brotha"'
who has made a fortune playing the bad boy, it makes me laugh.
Which is to say Marlette's cartoon hit the mark. It was sophisticated,
irreverent and funny. His use of West's own language to parody the
rapper's political statement was, in fact, the art of the cartoon.
Certain campus groups and administrators were outraged. This, despite
the fact that the same student government that pulled ads from the
Alligator is paying West to drop the N-Bomb in concert at the
university in a few days. UF's reputation as a party school unburdened
by intellectual heavy-lifting remains intact.
Unpopular freedom
It's hardly surprising that students don't understand
that the First Amendment which protects Marlette's and Brandes' right
to voice unpopular opinions also protects West's "music," as well as
their right to protest. A recent nationwide study by the Foundation for
Individual Rights in Education found that one of four college students
couldn't name any of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.
It's disturbing, however, when faculty and administrators'
understanding is little better. Some journalism professors have
embraced the debate as a teaching opportunity, but others, including UF
President Bernie Machen, have behaved like Church Ladies, pursing lips
and wagging fingers instead of defending liberty.
The painful irony is that those minorities whose sensibilities have
been offended are historically the first to suffer when free speech
goes.
Which is why African Americans and now Arab-Americans troubled by the
specter of discrimination should be the loudest voices in supporting
the freedoms that permit even speech they find offensive.
It's a messy job, but everybody's got to do it.
Attached Files
