College GOP will ban some from Horowitz
Posted November 4, 2009 at 12:50 am in News
The USC College Republicansâ decision to bring David Horowitz, a conservative writer and activist, to campus sparked controversy from the moment it was announced, but the outcry ramped up this week when some students were denied admission to tonightâs event.
The College Republicans, who are hosting the private event, are denying admission to around 30 students affiliated with specific student organizations, including Students for Justice in Palestine and the Progressive Alliance. Alexa Ekman, president of the USC College Republicans, said the group decided to ban certain students because they were worried about potential protests.
Ekman said the College Republicans has obtained copies of emails that made the organization feel there was a real danger of physical or verbal protest by members of SJP and other groups during the event.
Ekman wouldnât say exactly why she believed a protest might ensue. She did, however, reference an Facebook message that was sent to members of SJP from the groupâs president, Alex Shams.
The email tells SJP members, âThe fact that a USC student group is bringing this kind of racist trash to speak at our school is absolutely unacceptable, and it is up to us as students to resist it. Students for Justice in Palestine has voted to oppose this speaker in any way possible, and I am now calling on you to help us figure out how to respond.â
In light of this message, Ekman said College Republicans was concerned.
âWeâre worried about our event and the people attending and our speaker,â Ekman said. âWe do have reason to believe that there is a threat of opposition, whether it is by words or via violence.â
Shams, a senior majoring in international relations, said he is angry about the choice of speaker because of Horowitzâs conservative principles, which often target Islam.
âRight now, the USC College Republicans is bringing a man who is a very vocal and famous racist and Islamophobe who has in the past come to campuses across the country and targeted students in a similar way with his hate speech,â he said.
But no verbal or physical protest was ever planned, Shams said.
âThat protest wasnât supposed to disruptive at all. It was supposed to be silent,â he said.
Leena Ali, a second-year neuroscience Ph.D. student and a member of SJP, said only a silent protest was planned.
âWe werenât going to shout anything; we were going to get up and turn our backs,â she said.
But Ekman insisted there was a real threat of a protest at the event.
âThey have shown active involvement in preparation to protest our speaker, and [we] feel that the reasons above justify their denial to our event,â Ekman wrote in an email.
She emphasized, however, that it is not the protest that concerns USC College Republicans, but the way in which it might be conducted.
âWe are fine with their protest,â she said. âWe welcome their opinions and ideas, [but] not to the speaker on our time, and at our event that we paid for, in a disrespectful manner.â
Shams accused the College Republicans of denying anyone with a âMuslim-soundingâ name entrance to the event, but Ekman denied that claim. Many members of Students for Justice in Palestine are Muslim.
âWe are not letting anybody in those [specific] groups in. It has nothing to do with racial profiling,â she said. âWe spoke with Heather Larabee, [assistant dean of students and director of Campus Activities], and we told her exactly what weâre doing, so weâre in the clear.â
Larabee did not return calls asking for comment.
Ekman said the USC College Republicans are using Facebook to determine if students are associated with SJP or the Progressive Alliance and emailing these students to tell them they will not be allowed to attend the event.
âThis is event is entirely privately funded, and thus USC College Republicans reserves the right to deny entrance to anyone for any reason,â the email reads. âThe rhetoric utilized by students opposed to this event has given USC College Republicans extreme concern regarding the safety of our speaker and all those in attendance of the event. We have excluded your names from the RSVP list. Please do not attempt to attend our event, as you will be denied entrance.â
The College Republicans did not attempt to talk to members of SJP before the event in order to find a compromise between the two groups, because SJP and USC Progressive Alliance demonstrated they did not want to make amends with the College Republicans, Ekman said.
â[The USC Progressive Alliance made] fliers that pretend to be from our club and are inflammatory and derogatory and are types of slander,â she said. âBy putting those words in our mouth, they have usurped their rights to have attendance to our event because they are not respectful at all.â
On his blog, Horowitz addressed the creation of the fliers, which were titled, âHate Muslims? So Do We!!â and refuted the Progressive Allianceâs claims that he is a racist, saying they misquoted him.
Horowitz wrote that the Progressive Alliance flier attributed a quote to him which was âentirely inventedâ and ârepresent[s] nothingâ that he has ever written.
Despite the controversy, Dan Schnur, the director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics, said one of the benefits USC students receive is the opportunity to hear speakers of a wide range of ideas and opinions.
âHorowitz is certainly a very provocative speaker, but his is one voice of many in the debate over the future of the Middle East that has right to be heard,â he said.
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I am one of a number of Muslim students who is NOT in SJP or any of the above mentioned groups and has been denied to the event out of the concerns of a security threat.
Eckman is lying through her teeth in this article, and I am proof of this.
USC GOP is denying students like me with Muslim-sounding names entry, which is illegal under USC rules.
This man needs to be arrested tomorrow, along with this Ekman girl or whatever. These people are dangerous to society. They incite violence and racism.
[...] An article that will run in USC’s Daily Trojan newspaper Tomorrow addresses the USC College Republicans’ decision to keep members of the Students for Justice in Palestine and USC Progressive Alliance who wanted to dis…. [...]
This is absolutely ABSURD! How can USC permit this kind of racial discrimination on campus?! This has to be reported to the administration by as many people as possible. The USC College Republicans have gone too far with racial profiling this time, and it is irresponsible and shameful of the USC administration to allow them a venue for such segregated events on our campus.
Wow.
Seriously, you fear for the safety of the audience and the speaker? I mean, I totally get the “not wanting disruptions on the speaker’s time,” since you paid for him and all, but don’t get melodramatic. No one is assassinating Horowitz, I would like to believe.
I’m not familiar with the background of this, but I think the College Republicans have entirely overstepped here. Have a little faith in your fellow students to not assault a visiting speaker.
Weenies.
The is a private events. As such CRs can chose to enforce their guest list any way they choose. They are not receiving one penny from the Univeristy. Furthermore, Horowitz IS NOT a racist or any other slanderous term these far left groups are calling. It’s interesting how they just say, Horowitz said blah blah but produce no documented quotes. These groups are setting themsevles up for a big, fat slander lawsuit. There are consequences to slandering other individuals. And College Republicans refuses to stand idly by while they are so disguistingly attacked as is their speaker. Before you make infmalatory and untruthful statements in a college newspaper, verify that what you are saying is 100% factual. Otherwise you set youself up for a big fat slander lawsuit. Sure, you think, “I am a student. I don’t have any money to pay?”. Well once you do start working, the court will garnish your wages for years. And that way you will be paying for years, for slandering a speaker and a student organization just becuase you disagree with their political views.
Lindsay is absolutely correct. Alex Shams, you cannot slander another individual is a student newspaper. There are legal consequences to your quote in DT and the flyers you have been distributing. Instead of attacking Horowitz, why don’t you go work for “justice in Palestine?” You won’t becuase your organization is not at it’s core pro-palestinian, it is at it’s core a virulent anti-Israel group which often employs anti-semitic methods. Why don’t we raise the issue of the speaker you brought? Omar Barghouti? He callied for the annihilation of Israel, which is the equivalent of the annihilaition of 6 million jews. Does that number sound familiar? Wake up USC community. Israel stands for peace, and human rights in the Middle East. I dare say if Shams visited Israel he would enjoy far more rights in Israel than in any other country in the Middle East. In all countires besides Israels, non-muslims, women, and homosexuals are denied many rights they enjoy Israel. In some countires, homosexuals are stoned to death for their sexual orientation as are women who to disobey the males in their families. Shams should take a trip to all the countries in the Mid East before he wastes his time calling a pro-Israel speaker a racist.
You want hatred? You want freedom of speech? You want freedom of education? You want woman’s rights? Or, do you want a hate-filled supremacist religion instead?
One of Islam’s core tenants is “us versus them”. Muslims ARE superior. Non-Muslims are Kafirs, inferior. Find me one Muslim dominated country where this is NOT so.
Meanwhile, as Islam tightens its grip we get more and more of the following:
Pakistan: Jihadists blow up high school for girls
It is fairly common to see the tribal regions of Pakistan described as “lawless,” as this story does. But while the central government may not have meaningful authority in the area, it is not lawlessness, per se, that is the issue. Instead, it is the imposition by force of Sharia law.
“Militants blow up Pakistan girls school: officials,” from Agence France-Presse, November 1:
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Islamist militants blew up a girls school in Pakistan’s lawless Khyber tribal district Sunday, destroying the building and wounding four people in neighbouring homes, officials said.
Two explosions ripped through the 18-room government high school for girls at Kari Gar village and a boy who watched the premises is missing, possibly kidnapped by the militants, local administration officials said.
“The militants have blown up the school with two blasts and all rooms were demolished,” said administration official Shafeer Ullah.
“Four people in neighbouring houses were also wounded and their homes slightly damaged. We’re still trying to find out what happened to the office boy,” Ullah told AFP.
Another of Khyber’s administrators, Farooq Khan, confirmed the incident.
Islamist militants, who have carved out a strong presence in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt on the Afghan border, have destroyed hundreds of schools, mostly for girls, in the northwest of the country in recent years.
Nearly 200 schools were destroyed in the Swat valley alone during a two-year Taliban uprising to enforce sharia law in a district once favoured by Western tourists for its ski slopes and bracing mountain air….
Yes, I understand that the event is private. The CR can enforce whatever they want, as much as we may disagree with it.
The problem is that USC is allowing CR to use a campus venue when the enforced policy directly contradicts USC’s own written values regarding racial discrimination and tolerance. It’s a moral violation.
And Chris & Ali, how can both of you make such sweeping generalizations of predominantly Muslim countries? Similarly, you make a romanticized generalization of Israel, completely ignoring its strong record of war crimes against civilians in recent years.
The issue is not as black and white as you make it out to be. There are dangerous sects of Islam, just as there are dangerous sects of Judaism and virtually all other religions. 9/11 brought us close to one such sect, but in spite of the horrible things that happened on that day, there is no basis to vilify the inhabitants of Muslim nations, the majority of whom are opposed to violence and fundamentalist fascism. Did you miss the protests in Iran?
I have several Muslim friends and they are among the kindest, most diplomatic and peace loving people I know. How dare you write off an entire ethnic population as adherent to religious barbarism.
Miles,
Mohammed was a warrior. He preached the spread of Islam by whatever means necessary. Are you caliming this is not true?
Then how do you explain the following? Are these all examples of a “small, minority sect” as you claim?
Sudan: Muslims have killed 400,000 and created 2.5 million refugees.
Somalia: Total anarchy thanks to Muslims.
Thailand: Over 4,000 Buddhists killed in last four years by Muslims.
India: Under constant threat from Muslims…Mumbai massacres targeted non-Muslims.
Kashmir: A hot-zone between Pakistan and India. Muslims claim Kashmir belings to them despite Hindus presence there fro thousands of years.
Pakistan: Thousands killed (sunnis by Shia and Shia by Sunnis).
Afghanistan: Taliban have murdered tens of thousands with the emphasis on helpless women.
Iraq/Iran War: One million Muslims killed by fellow Muslims, Shia v Sunni and vice-a-versa.
Saudi Arabia: Shia are second class citizens. There is not one, single non-Muslim citizen of this country. Not one.
Yemen: Several hundred Shias have been killed in the past year by Sunni.
Englan: several hundred commuters were killed by Muslims.
Spain: Several hundred commuters were killed by Muslims.
New York City: Several thousand civilians killed by Muslims.
Beslan Grammar School/Russia: Over one hundred school children killed by Muslims.
Western China: Dozens killed by Muslims.
Some of the most ancient Christian communities are under attack…
Egypt: The ancient Coptic Christian communities are under siege
Iraq: The anciet Chaldean Christian community is under siege
Nigeria: Christians in the south are being killed by Muslims.
Malaysi and Indonesia impose limits on Christian’s freedoms.
Bali: Hundred killed by Muslims at a disco.
Turket: Today Turkey is 99% Muslim, 1% other religions. 90 Years ago Muslims killed 1.5 million Armenian Christians in the “Armenian Genocide”.
Tell me again how kind and tolerant Muslims are.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure your friends are wonderful. But the facts ennumerated above are sticky facts, not some fantasy created in a right-winger’s mind. The Bali disco was bombed. One million Muslims were killed in the Iraq/Iran War. Sudan has become a killing field thanks to Islam. Are you denying these facts? Why is this so widespread if Islam is a tolerant, peaceful religion?
To All
From what I have read, there has been a clear intent to disrupt this event. Lets not look beyond what it is, another group trying to disrupt anothers private event. This man clearly costs a lot to get here thus I understand Ekman’s decision to not allow those affiliated with the other group. That makes perfect sense especially after the slander that they sent out which i saw at VKC.
Fight On!!
As an alumnus and donor I’ve just made President Sample’s office aware that the use of U.S.C. facilities in a way that prohibits free discussion and speech, as a form of preemptive censorship, not only offends me but will cause me to take my donations to my postgraduate institution.
This issue is not Jew vs. Muslim. I’m neither and frankly think the world would be better off is both groups would peacefully exist. However to ban individuals from a speech on a university campus because they theoretically may be disruptive is not something a high quality institution should allow. If College REpublicans wish to discriminate in this way they need to take their event off campus.
Thank you for making the relevant point. We can bicker all day about Horowitz, the point is, they’re letting him speak on the basis of “free speech” and then preventing those who disagree to attend. I understand they CAN do it because it’s a private event, but it’s just wrong and hypocritical.
Free speech remains a precious, and easily lost, right. USC should be proud that it can host such a wide variety of speakers from around the world in a civilzed, tolerant atmosphere.
As the legendary journalist I.F. Stone noted, “even under the worst dictator, it is not forbidden to agree with him. It is the freedom to disagree that is freedom of speech.”
agreed.
The Republicans young and old are just hate mongers no matter what side of the ledger. They had Ann Coulter last year who is hateful of the Jews so they play no favorites only bringing the worst of the worst to the campus of USC. Their idea of “Fight On” goes the furthest away from the sports area.
@Ali
I would tend to agree with Miles. 1000 years ago, Christians were waging religious wars against Muslims. 500 years ago Christians were waging religious wars against each other. Christians still target women, gay people and Jews. Now we are so fortunate in First World countries that Christian extremists are only bombing abortion clinics (to entirely disregard Third World Christianity).
Yet Republicans focus exclusively on human rights abuses by Muslims. Why? Republicans are Christians. Even the secular Ayn Rand folks rarely dare to confront Christianity simply because they couldn’t get away with it.
It is entirely hypocritical for Republicans to attack Islam over human rightsâtheir anti-Islamic rhetoric is based instead on Christian norms. This is not to say we cannot criticize Islamic societies; it’s just disingenuous to describe their abuses as inherently Muslim. Â
@ Lindasy.. calm down, your ridiculous
@ “Ali”: There are almost 2 bn muslims and 14 million Jews, if you look at things in relative terms and not abolute terms, Jews have historically caused WAAY more bloodshed then Muslims. From the times of Jesus, to Palestine now. The first testament its self is full of violent claims. Jews believe it is their god given right to take the land of Palestine, and they are doing so by use of force. Jews and Muslims where living side by side peacefully prior to the Israeli Palestinian issue. Take your biased research somewhere else.
PS. I am NOT an anti-Semite, Jews have lost legitimacy in that claim, way too over used.
and do not attack Alex Shams, do not sue anyone. Be civil about this, find some legit claims to attack SJP on and do not coward out and call the big brother, fight this peaceful debate, don’t run away and attack the debater.
Steve,
I detect a fair bit of hate in your comment.
I do not mean to be glib, just real. Your comment was what it was: opinionated and harshly judgemental. Would you say the same thing about Jerimiah Wright? Or is your knee-jerk opinion aimed soley at the right?
I do not agree with much of what Ann coulter has to say and find some of it offensive. That said I do agree with some of what she has to say. The key for me is to TRY to be open minded. To “TRY” to be open minded is avery hard to do for al of us. To condemn without thinking is what we’re fighting against, and I include the Republicans who are doing the right thing by bringing a fresh and very different voice to the college debate. Bravo to them for doing so! For the rest of us let’s listen and think before trying, judging and convicting.
College Republicans is conducting a private event. While it is being held on campus, it is perfectly legitimate for any group to enforce a guest list if their event is being privately funded as SJP could do if they so chose. Furthermore, Shams comments in the DT are slanderous becuase neither SJP nor Progressive Alliance has produced documented, specific evidence of Horowtiz being a racists. I assume that now we live in such an intolerant campus environment that anyone who is a Republican or Conservative and persumably disagress w/Obama, is a racist. Lincoln was a Republican. So was MLK. Learn the facts and history before you make unfounded and false statments that seek to infmlame the student body. Horowitz and his organziaiton, the Freedom Center, will likely take legal action against Shams, SJP, and Progressive Alliance. While there is a disguisting double standard on college campuses that makes it ok for other student organizations to slander College Republicans, the legal system is not plauged by a double standard. Those who actively spread false statments in writing and in publications are comitting the serious legal wrong of slander. And they can expect legal action to be taken against them. I encourage the student body to visit David Horowitz’s Freedom Center website (www.freedomcenter.org) to learn for themsevles what Horowitz and the Freedom Center stand for.
Talk about cherry picking your Muslim history, Ali. Yes, all those things did happen, but you completely ignore the positive achievements of Muslims. I’m not going to bother going into similar atrocities from Christian and Jewish history, because it’s neither of us is going to sway the other.
Jenny, call Horowitz’s dialogue what you want, but to me, any discourse that involves the demonization of a general sect of people is extremely dangerous, and I think it is negligible of a school with a large Muslim population to allow such dialogue in a campus venue. When speech endangers others, the issue of free speech becomes irrelevant. College Republicans have banned many on fear of David Horowitz’s safety, so why should Muslim students not have the right to register similar grievances regarding a man who comes to campus to stir up xenophobic sentiments? I hear what you’re saying, but I find your defense weak for ignoring these troubling sides of the issue.
The USC College Republicans have chosen to keep certian specific students from entering the event on the grounds that those students have openly said their only intention is to disrupt the speaker. The USC CRs are protecting Horowitz’s right to speak without disruption. Students who wish to protest may do so freely, outside of the event.
That the anti-Horowitz groups are claiming racial profiling is ridiculous and a slander against the CRs.
If these groups support freedom of speech they should allow Horowitz to speak, and maybe even try to listen to what he has to say.
Alan Dana
LA Regional Vice Chair – College GOP
The banned groups do not believe in free speech.
Why should they be permitted to attend if their only intent is to suppress the free expression of ideas of the invited guest? We have seen plenty of demonstrations of the type of behavior we could expect, at other campuses.
They are free to protest outside.
CR has the right to refuse entry to whoever they please because they are not using USC funds for the event, they do not have the right to deny entry to USC students on the basis of race, ethnicity, or religion. This is a violation of SCampus, and the onus to prove that they are not using racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination to deny access to the event to Arab and Muslim USC students needs to be proven by CR.
Students with Anglo names that are members of the SJP Facebook group were not denied RSVP status. Muslim and Arab students that are not members of the SJP Facebook group were denied access. So what CR is claiming is not ever remotely accurate.
College Republicans is claiming to be advocates of free speech for themselves while doing everything in their power to suppress the rights of free speech of others. Also, College Republicans wants a one-sided event with no debate, disagreement, discussion, or constructive criticisms.
If College Republicans is confident in their position, they should not be afraid of people that disagree with them.
The Omar Barghouti event on Monday evening about Palestine and Israel included the Israel Studies Chair of UCLA as a respondent so that the event was not entirely one sided and there would be academic debate and disagreement. I challenge College Republicans to try to match the same standard for themselves instead of being cowards who are too afraid to have their own viewpoints challenged publicly at their own event.
unless the College Republicans are planning on paying USC for use of the space as well as electricity and other infrastructure costs, this event is far from “privately funded” thus, the CR claims about policing entry based on that fact are baseless.