Submitted by J. Fitzgerald, Jan 2, 2007 22:50

I agree that the student response to an invited speaker on immigration was unbecoming in a university setting, though if the College Republicans were truly interested in fostering "reasoned" dialogue about the issues of our time they might change tactics and invite speakers on both sides of the issue, instead of just inviting the ones with whom they are predisposed to agree. After all, when the International Socialist Organization invited George Galloway to speak about the Iraq War last year at CUNY, they also invited a prominent advocate of the war, Christopher Hitchens, to debate him. Perhaps the students would not have rushed the stage if other viewpoints had been represented on the stage from the beginning; though they were still wrong to do so. Though what any of this has to do with the Pope or the "Turkey Question," whatever that happens to be, escapes me.

A response as patently unreasonable as that of the student audience to the Minuteman speaker is the author's implied curative measures: the return of McCarthyism and mandatory oaths of "unqualified loyalty" to the US government. If anything were to have a chilling effect on reasonable, honest dialogue about issues it would be the witch-hunt mentality of the McCarthy hearings or loyalty oaths reminiscent of fascist dictatorships. If student discourse is only allowed to reflect the talking points of the political party in the White House, or else risk being labeled "treasonous," a university education would become a supremely pointless exercise.

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