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Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Ben Shapiro :: Townhall.com Columnist
Stalin-Esque Show Trial At Tufts University
by Ben Shapiro
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And a show trial it was. The room was filled to capacity with Dennis and MSA allies, who cheered, on cue, for Dennis and his MSA compatriot, Shirwac Mohamed. Dennis and Mohamed called witness after witness to complain of emotional distress: a lesbian student who whined that The Source opposed the homosexual agenda; a black female student who complained that she had -- horror of horrors! -- been engaged in a dialogue about the carol during one of her classes; a member of the MSA who carped that the quotes from the Koran were not placed "in context." Not one witness showed documented evidence of psychological harm.

And the CSL swallowed this gibberish whole. Barbara Grossman, the radical left chair of the CSL, compared printing the carol to spray-painting a swastika on a synagogue. Another CSL member stated that labeling Islam violent was unacceptable in any way, shape or form.

The process was a mockery. After an initial request for silence, the crowd was allowed to cheer for the complainants and razz The Source. The CSL board allotted twice as much time to Dennis and Mohamed than they did to The Source. They granted Dennis and Mohamed extra time, while clocking The Source to the second. Dennis was allowed to slander members of The Source as racists, stating that the conservative agenda was "lower taxes, less government, hate black people."

Around midnight, I gave my closing statement, explaining that diversity of thought means protection of unpopular political views. Then Dennis took the floor to attack The Source. "We don't like you. Nobody likes you," he said. "There should be consequences."

Dennis and Mohamed will likely receive what they want from a board so biased it makes Castro's judiciary look like a haven of open-mindedness. If you're against affirmative action -- if you feel, as Justice Clarence Thomas does, that it is inherently degrading -- you may be guilty of harassment at Tufts. If you believe that Islam is linked to violence, you may be guilty of harassment at Tufts. On the Tufts campus, forget defending your views or listening to others' views: Victimology trumps all.

Just the latest incident in the ongoing Stalin-esque ideological purge on America's college campuses.
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About The Author
Ben Shapiro is a regular guest on dozens of radio shows around the United States and Canada and author of Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House.
 
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(65 comments so Far)
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Reply # 1
Date: Jun 2, 2007 - 1:55 PM EST
Winning isn't everything,
it's the only thing. This is the reason that Orwellian double-think prevails on every campus. Conservatives always think that the left is idealistic. Conservatives behave as if truth will out and the better angels of their nature will be awakened to decency if only we clearly point to the contradictions, the double standards, the hypocrisies that bleed forth from Stalinesque hate speech trials and Maoist re-education coursework.

One commenter here wants to cavil that the trials are not Stalinist since nobody is executed at the end of the day. Well, not yet. For now reputations and careers are tarnished, freedom of speech is silenced. The tactic of soft totalitarianism is working, it is unnecessary to shed blood, for now. Soon however, these home grown U.S. Hitler Youth/Red Guards will begin to demonstrate for us that they are not averse to other methods, indeed, that the intelligentsia actually relish the chance for righteous rage.

Indeed, they write openly of how they long to apply the ultimate sanction to leaders they despise, to groups that challenge their views, they are eager to correct thoughtcrimes and speechcrimes.

They are expertly versed in the sliding scale of values, fully adept in mental splicing, redacting, expunging reality, marinated in the dialectic of 2 plus 2 equals 5. Truth is whatever anti-Americanism and radical leftist dogma says truth is, there is no objective truth or absolute moral standard. Absolutists and moralists are doubleplus ungood.

The Delphic soviets, the Leninist stategems, and Alinsky's tactics are sufficient to ensure ultimate, inevitable victory. Especially when the only opposition is from idealistic, sophomoric conservatives who still think that these dangerous intellectual poseurs and commissars actually have ideals that weigh more than a featherweight in the scale of truth and justice.
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Reply # 2
Date: May 5, 2007 - 5:55 PM EST
Response to adsf
I'm not going to get into an argument about specific teachers, but the majority that I have had in three years have been moderate to conservative. And there are certainly more conservative PS professors than racial minority PS professors, so I wouldn't call them the "least represented minority". Obviously someone can know something about politics and be conservative. I might question whether someone can know something about politics and be neo-conservative, but let's not get into that one.

And yeah, calling the trial "Stalin-Esque" is definitely a little too extreme. All it is is an eye-grabbing phrase meant to draw people in and convince them that they're under attack. It's shameless and dishonest and fear-mongering.

Let's face it. The Primary Source does not have a good reputation on campus because they always have to push the envelope in order to get noticed. Even within the Primary Source there are plenty of people who don't like much of what is published under their name.

Let's hope that the trial is fair despite the leanings of members. But remember, if the Primary Source is found guilty of harassment, then maybe it has more to do with the handbook and less to do with a communist conspiracy among trial members. After all, they should be interpreting, not rewriting.

It is also clear (to anyone who knows more than what they’re told about the subject) that the vast majority of the Tufts campus does not want to censor the Primary Source. Most of the students who disagree with what was written still respect the Source's right to print it. The students making a fuss are a clear minority (of opinion), so it is unfair to classify an entire student body according to their views. The majority of Tufts students want the Primary Source to be able to print what it prints, even when they might disagree with what it says or would prefer they say it in a less purposefully-inflammatory way.
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