University of California Regent Jay Sures asked the right question this week about free speech on campus: Does it apply to everyone equally? Or just the far left?
Specifically: If a Palestinian terrorist has free speech at UC Berkeley, why can’t a former Israeli hostage have free speech at UCLA?
Sures was reacting to the shocking appearance — via remote link — of would-be Palestinian terrorist Israa Jaabis, who tried to ignite a gas tank to kill Israelis. She ended up burning herself and a police officer.
For some reason, students at UC Berkeley thought it was important to hear her perspective.
However twisted that may be, Sures acknowledged that students and faculty have the right to hear Jaabis.
But equally, students and faculty have the right to hear freed Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov, who endured over 500 days in captivity at the hands of Palestinian terrorists who starved and tortured him.
It remains stunning that UCLA’s student government would protest Shem Tov’s address to a group of Jewish students on campus.
It’s a sign of what’s wrong in higher education — especially in California’s public university system, which is struggling to defend its once-liberal values after being captured by “woke” ideologues.
Berkeley is the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in the 1960s. Students demanded the right to campaign for outside political causes on campus — including civil rights, and opposition to the Vietnam War.
But over time, “free speech” became “left speech.” Conservative speakers have been heckled, threatened, and literally chased away at UC Berkeley in recent years.
The same sickness has spread across other UC campuses.
Another disturbing incident took place at UCLA’s law school, where law students — who are supposed to take pride in using words to win arguments — disrupted a speech last month by Department of Homeland Security general counsel James Percival.
Instead of taking advantage of a unique opportunity to ask Percival questions, to challenge him, or even to debate with him, the UCLA law students tried to prevent him from speaking at all.
If any of those students become attorneys in California, they will have to take an oath. They will have to vow to “support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California,” and to conduct themselves “with dignity, courtesy, and integrity.”
Free speech must apply to everyone — or it does not exist at all.
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