The Plot Thickens at Pace and Stonybrook

The plot thickens as Pace administrators vainly attempt to cover up their disgraceful conduct of silencing and bullying students into canceling the screening of Obsession. In a self-serving letter to the New York Post, Pace President David Caputo takes his administration to new heights of hypocrisy in a futile effort to redeem himself from the no-confidence vote of the faculty and student body. While he claims to champion a rich intellectual pluralism on his campus, he whitewashes the bullying tactics of his overzealous “film police” deans by blaming the victim, Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov for merely wanting to exercise his academic rights of free speech and assembly to show a film that diverges from the prevailing radical campus ideologies. Michael was censored, silenced, shouted down and physically restrained in a mediation meeting of eight against one. There was no “constructive dialogue” or “civil discourse” here as President Caputo disgracefully boasts in his letter as follows:

January 16, 2007 -- The president of Pace University's Hillel group appears to have misconstrued the intentions of the dean who brought our Muslim student group together with Hillel to engage in a constructive dialogue about the proposed showing of the film "Obsession" ("Pace's Film Police," Editorial, Jan. 10). Because our campuses have been troubled by hate and bias-related incidents this fall, our dean hoped to start a discussion about postponing it to a calmer time.

As your editorial notes, she tried to address the potential for disruption in events about contentious issues like terrorism. If disruption seems possible, we get ready to protect orderly civil discourse.

Pace condemns anti-Semitism, hate crimes, attacks, acts of vandalism and intolerance against any group. We welcome a highly diverse and richly opinionated student body and events that help students learn about the world. Campuses are the crucible where ideas are challenged and discussed openly and freely, and we are committed to staying that way. "Obsession," the students now tell us, will be shown next semester.

David A. Caputo
President
Pace University
White Plains

The Post fires back with a spot-on editorial:

PUSILLANIMOUS PACE

January 16, 2007 -- Anyone who still labors under the delusion that U.S. colleges, particularly in New York, are free-speech havens should gaze at the adjacent letter by Pace University's President David Caputo.

Caputo tries to portray Pace officials as honest brokers in dealings with a Jewish group, Hillel, which had hoped to show a film some Muslims find objectionable.

Yet, right from the start, the letter resorts to distortion: It claims that Hillel's president "misconstrued the intentions" of Pace officials. Administrators, it says, merely wanted the Jewish group to "engage in a constructive dialogue" with Muslim students.

But Hillel President Michael Abdurakhmanov says school staffers actually threatened him with reprisals and even physically restrained him when he tried to defend the film. How do you "misconstrue" that kind of behavior?

In any event, if the school were truly committed to freedom of expression, the only "dialogue" needed would be to convey one simple message: Anyone thinking of disrupting the film or committing violence will face severe repercussions.

End of discussion.

Officials could have used the occasion to make it absolutely clear that no one at Pace can be barred from showing a film - even if it's not a left-wing film. But that wasn't the goal.

(Again, Pace is not unique in this regard. Consider how Columbia University responded to violence there last October that kept the founder of the Minutemen Project - a group favoring tough control of U.S. borders - from speaking. New York is still waiting for meaningful action.)

Indeed, Pace flack Chris Cory acknowledges that officials really were trying to can the film - supposedly until tensions over recent anti-Muslim "hate crimes" dissipated.

But instead of admitting that outright, Caputo tries to pretend the objective was merely "to start a discussion." Please.

Sure, soothing tensions is a worthy goal. But not at the cost of free speech.

Most revealing, of course, is Caputo's characterization of terrorism. He calls it a "contentious issue." Is he serious? Only in the fever swamps of the far left (and in the minds of college elitists) would, say, the 9/11 attacks be viewed as events to be debated, rather than deplored.

The film Hillel wanted to show, "Obsession," focuses on the dangers of radical Islamic militants. There is nothing - nothing - "contentious" about it.

If Muslim students - or Pace officials - feel otherwise, the problem may be worse than the film suggests.

This is a victory in progress for freedom of speech because Michael Abdurakhmanov didn’t back down when his fundamental rights were trampled upon. Unfortunately the same thing cannot be said for other campuses such as Brown University and now Stonybrook University where the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the administration coerced the Chabad organization into canceling its planned screening of Obsession and they meekly complied. The College Republicans appear considerably bolder asserting that they will host a sceening in the spring.

Additionally Stonybrook Hillel, fearing the inevitable protests from MSA rejected the opportunity to host Nonie Darwish, a wonderful pro-Israel speaker of Palestinian roots who appears in Obsession. Darwish, a former Muslim, was the daughter of an Egyptian warrior who headed the first anti-Israel terrorist force, the fedayeen in Gaza. As a school child she was taught Jew hatred and the honor of martyrdom. The title of her new book “Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel, and the War on Terror” is the subject matter of her numerous talks across the nation.

The other day I received an email from Daniel Klein, the Campus Coordinator of Standwithus regarding his arrangements for Darwish’s speaking engagement at Stonybrook. He wrote: “We intended to bring Nonie Darwish there in the spring of 06, but the Hillel Director was totally against it, citing that it would cause problems with the Muslim students.”

A comparable situation that I recently wrote about was the acquiescence of Hillel at Brown University: “Complaining that she was “too controversial,” Muslim students objected to Darwish’s planned appearance and Hillel timidly complied, not wanting to ‘upset its ‘beautiful relationship’ with the Muslim community.’”

Sadly I found out about this after these campus organizations had already made the mistake of backing down. As I had encouraged Michael Abdurakhmanov, I would have told them that it's their academic right of free speech to show the film or have whatever speaker they want. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was invited to speak at Cooper Union and Columbia was determined to invite Holocaust denying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. MSA at UCLA shouted "death to Israel" at their campus rallies and Brown University held anti-Israel events during “Palestinian Solidarity Week”. If all this is protected speech (which it is), Hillel and Chabad should not back down when it comes to their own protected speech. They're doing more harm to their cause by placating these radical groups in the name of good feelings. In the end they will bring more animus against Israel and Jewish students as these groups learn that it is so easy to get their way.

Rather college is the place to debate and wrestle with contentious issues, not sweep them under the rug for the sake of amicable relations. Rather than being fearful of offending someone’s feelings, we should bring the thorny issues such as terrorism and radical Islam out into the sunlight and seriously wrestle with them. We are too excessively nervous about placating black, Hispanic and Arab advocacy groups who are street-wise enough to know how to bully the pious academics of the ivory tower into submission.