Protesters shamefully shut down speech

Shameful! The university that 45 years ago defied an unconstitutional infringement of free speech has now allowed the silencing of a former congressman who had dared to discuss his opposition to state and federal legislation granting in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. Former presidential candidate Tom Tancredo had been invited to speak in a small auditorium at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, but protesters first drowned him out and stretched a protest banner ("No one is illegal") in front of him and then broke out a window in the Bingham Hall auditorium. Campus police determined the violence and destruction of public property to warrant clearing the auditorium.

When the state legislature in 1963 passed the Speaker Ban Law, prohibiting any member of the Communist Party or anyone who had exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination from speaking on university property, students and faculty rose up in protest against the restrictions on free speech. A communist speaker who had been barred from campus set up a microphone on the Franklin Street sidewalk and had his say before a respectful audience of students and faculty. After negative court rulings and the threat of loss of the university's accreditation, the legislature repealed the law.

A generation later, protesters shouted down Tancredo who, despite his extreme views about illegal immigration, was calm, polite and rational. His opinions were the same ones he had expressed in last year's Republican presidential debates, but at Chapel Hill he was shouted down, often profanely, by those accusing him of "hate speech." After campus police hustled the invited speaker out of the building, according to the News and Observer, about 200 protesters gathered outside and chanted, "We shut him down; no racists in our town" and "Yes, racists, we will fight, we know where you sleep at night."

If that chant doesn't scare you, it should. It's a clear threat to anyone who disagrees with the protesters. Accusing Tancredo of "hate speech" also should give you pause. At a time when the state legislature is considering criminalizing "bullying" by public school students and the state university system is pondering punishment for "hate speech," Tancredo's reception shows just how broadly "hate speech" can be defined. Any opinion with which you disagree can be called "hate speech." Tancredo did not express hatred of anyone, nor did he utter racially discriminatory opinions. His position has been that the United States should enforce its immigration laws and squelch any policies that undermine those laws. But the shouting, stomping, window-breaking protesters remind him, "we know where you sleep at night." I would take that as a threat of more violence, perhaps even murder.

The First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech does not categorize speech as "good" or "bad," as "loving" or "hateful." It guarantees free speech, the freedom to express opinions, even unpopular ones. Tuesday night's shouting-down of Tancredo is a shameful event anywhere, but especially on a university campus where, once, unpopular free speech was defended.