Tolerance and Terrorism at Queens College
Jeff Wiesenfeld, trustee of the City University of New York, has written a letter to the New York Post concerning an alleged terrorist’s appearing as a speaker at Queens College (h/t Sharad Karkhanis). The Post reports that the Muslim Students’ Association (MSA) invited “an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing” to speak. James Girdusky, vice president of Queens’s College Republicans, has called for an end to funding of the MSA. Queens College argues that this is a free speech issue. Trustee Wiesenfeld writes that while free speech must be protected, the CUNY community ought to speak out.
I wrote an email to President James Muyskens:
I am writing a blog for the National Association of Scholars concerning Trustee Wiesenfeld’s recent letter to the New York Post concerning the spat between the QC Republican Club and the MSA. The article writes that Queens has taken the position that this is a free speech issue.
First, if this is a free speech issue, do you apply free speech standards to “words that wound” other groups as well as Jews? Second, if a student applies for funding of a campus Ku Klux Klan or Neo-Nazi club, would you fund that as you fund the MSA, which has stimulated anti-Semitic feeling similar to what might be feared from a KKK-type group? Third, do you see a distinction between allowing the members of the MSA to speak and providing them with funding and campus support such as student center meeting rooms?
Yes, it’s a free speech issue. If Girdusky gets what he wants, next time it will be his group that gets punished for hosting a speaker someone else hates just as much. Giving all student organizations an equal shot at campus resources and student fee money, regardless of politics, is the right plan. Wiesenfeld has it right: complain but don’t punish.
If Queens really does view this as a free speech issue then they have to be consistent. How many campuses will fund racist speech in other contexts? If Queens is consistent, my hat is off to them, but I suspect they may not be so.
The Muslim speaker is UNINDICTED and he didn’t say ANYTHING offensive at this speech. I went; I’m Jewish. Also, College Republicans are actually at fault here. They showed an explicitly anti-Islam movie, something that was frowned upon by both students and faculty.
If your characterization of the College Republicans as anti-Islamic is accurate, then your point is well taken.
The speaker’s name is Siraj Wahhaj. Anyone can look him up online and listen to his lectures and speeches. He is a well respected member of the Muslim community who sadly has been attacked and slandered by ideological extremists for political purposes. The Vice President of the QC Republicans, Ryan Girdusky, is a hateful kid who harbors some very disturbing views about Islam and Muslims. In a recent article in the Queens College newspaper “Knight News,” the cofounder of the College Republicans said,
“…the current leadership of the College Republicans at Queens College had made a poor decision in showing the film, “Fitna,” recently, a decision that I do not condone….As far as I know, there has not been any incident between these faiths until the CR’s recent misguided attempts to seek attention. After a conversation with the current vice president of College Republicans, it is clear to me that this event was to serve no purpose other than to grab headlines, at the expense of harmony and security that we take for granted on this campus every day.”