Free Speech, Madison and UW Style: The Good and the Bad.

Today the University of Wisconsin Union Theater will host Ayaan Hirsi Ali as part of the Distinguished Lecture Series.

Originally she was rejected as a speaker -too controversial.

UW to host controversial author who rejects Islam

Students first voted against bringing Hirsi Ali because they didn't want to be seen as supporting her agenda, said Reid Tice, chair of the Distinguished Lecture Series committee. But when a scheduled speaker, sportswriter Rick Reilly, fell through, the committee reconsidered Hirsi Ali...

Hirsi Ali wrote the screenplay for "Submission," a short movie by Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh that criticized the treatment of women in Islamic society. In 2004, an extremist killed van Gogh in Amsterdam and left a death threat against Hirsi Ali pinned to his chest with a knife.

Hirsi Ali said she will focus her speech on the plight of women in Islam and the importance of talking about it, even though it can be risky.

It is sad and even frightening that students, or any one for that matter, would succumb to the notion that the right to speak is measured by the messenger being  timid, meek, and boring.

Fortunately there was an opportunity to revisit the issue and the right thing was done.

As a student I had the privilege to hear Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace, Joan Baez and Strom Thurmond, Eldridge Cleaver and Averell Harriman. The campus and the university community was served well by every one of them speaking and sharing their beliefs and thoughts, no matter how controversial, outdated, narrow-minded, or enlightening their speech.

On a sadder note, Isthmus reports that the city of Madison Parks Division instituted rules banning the staff speaking to journalists, council members or just about any one, A 'gag rule' at city parks

As Isthmus has reported (Watchdog, 1/22/09), Parks Superintendent Kevin Briski, upon taking over in June 2008, began requiring that all media inquiries be routed through Whitmore. He thinks this policy has worked out well: "It's helped facilitate efficient communication."

But clearly the new policy has struck fear in the hearts of some Parks employees. One person even asked not to be quoted saying s/he could not be quoted.

A few words of advice. No one is served well by limiting the speech of city staff. In fourteen years as mayor, our office had a very simple policy - make sure you know what you are talking about, and if you are unsure refer the matter to someone who does.

That was it. No gag rule. No lengthy talking points. I do not recall any disasters. There were a few embarrassing moments when a staff member said something and did not have all the information but nothing that would remotely justify a gag order.

As the President of the Madison Parks Commission, Bill Barker noted:

"The tradition of the city has always been transparency and open government. Anything that runs counter to that is not a good idea."

City council members are a different story but, not to worry,  no one will ever keep them quiet.

 

Comments

[michael donnelly]

Could the city council reverse that?

[george hesselberg]

Whenever a director starts a stupid policy and then is asked how the policy is working, it is always "working out well."
That's because part of the policy is that no one is allowed to criticize the policy, so there is no record of it failing.

[Brian (neaguy)]

Nice to see that FFRF is supporting the UW speaker.

[hieronymous]

I, too, have heard, in the halls of one of those UW campuses in the ausland, the words of some of those you mention. Also Gus Hall (whom Jesse Helms used to call "that commernist") and Drew Pearson and an assortment of true-believing John Birchers (remember them?) and Eugene McCarthy and Richard Nixon and a couple of paranoid and truly wild-eyed Weather Underground radicals, whose names escape me at the moment.

Their views were not universally admired, especially back then in the 1960s, but allowing them to be articulated seemed, at the time at least, to be near the core of why we have higher-level liberal arts education at all. I recall no discussion of turning any of them away. Nobody thought being tolerant and open-minded to unpopular views was particularly courageous.

Those who tried to wave off Hirsi Ali may now try to persuade themselves that their action was somehow moral, or taken in a moment of confusion, or else they will have to own up to their pusillanimous diffidence.

As for the control freak over at Parks ... May he suffer the torture of a thousand anonymous news leaks. He will long for the day when he at least knew who was saying what.