Mark B. Rotenberg: What we can learn from the Tutu affair

Speech prevails. But sometimes we need to be reminded how it works.

By Mark B. Rotenberg

Last update: October 16, 2007 - 3:07 PM

Many lessons may be learned from the decision of University of St. Thomas President Dennis Dease to uninvite and then invite Desmond Tutu to speak on his campus.

One is about perceived censorship. While a private Catholic university has a constitutional right to decide whom it wants to invite to speak, college campuses in America today are seen as unique, open forums for diverse expression of viewpoints. Those who try to limit access to a speaker based on his views are unlikely to prevail.

Columbia University President Lee Bollinger recently came under intense pressure to rescind an invitation to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak on campus. Critics argued, correctly, that Columbia had no duty to provide a prestigious public platform for a speaker who was unlikely to promote reasoned academic discourse. Bollinger responded by affirming the invitation and the special role of universities as facilitators of robust debate, while sharply condemning Ahmadinejad's call for the destruction of Israel and denial of the Holocaust.

Similarly, when the president of Notre Dame was confronted by demands to ban a theater production deemed to be anti-Catholic, he allowed the play to proceed while making clear that the production did not imply any endorsement by Notre Dame of the playwright's views.

Another lesson is about jumping to conclusions without evidence. Tutu's canceled invitation received international notoriety because many thought it was part of a pattern of widespread Jewish pressure to censor Israel's critics.

But President Dease demolished that idea. "I was under no pressure from any pro-Israeli groups or individuals, nor did I receive any requests from them to refrain from inviting Archbishop Tutu to speak," he declared. That an esteemed Catholic university leader would feel compelled to make such a public denial is sad testimony to an upsurge of sinister theories about Jewish power in America today.

The truth is that university campuses are awash with anti-Israel sentiment. Harsh critics of Israel -- including diverse Israeli and American Jewish voices -- are commonplace in academic settings. Their books receive broad popular attention in the United States, and their perspectives dominate international forums. It takes no courage to be an Israel basher and no effort to find anti-Israel literature and speakers on college campuses, in the media and on the Web. Those who bewail secret Jewish influences in American politics are not describing reality, but are dabbling in a dangerous cesspool of prejudice.

A final and most important lesson from the Tutu episode is that the best way to confront a controversial speaker is not to turn him away, but to increase opportunities for others to speak as well. Of course Bishop Tutu should be heard on campus. So should those who disagree with him. If President Dease is concerned that Tutu will present hurtful or wrongheaded remarks about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, there are many speakers who can present the other side, starting with the fact that Israel has offered to turn over almost all disputed territory in exchange for peace, only to be met with threats of annihilation and surges of terrorism targeted at its civilian population.

Dease should be applauded for recognizing that the antidote to troublesome speech is more speech, and for offering a forum at which multiple viewpoints may be heard. Too bad good lessons sometimes must be learned the hard way.

Mark B. Rotenberg is general counsel and adjunct law professor at the University of Minnesota, and president of Minnesotans Against Terrorism.

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