Race Issues Dominate White House Race

by Walter Brasch

(part 2 of 2)

Donald Trump says he watched the destruction of the World Trade Center, and saw “thousands and thousands of people [who were] cheering as that building was coming down.” Every non-partisan fact-checking site and news medium debunks Trump’s faulty recollection. But 9/11 burnished an image in his mind of terrorism by Muslims. His solution is to issue an unconstitutional moratorium against Muslims who wish to emigrate to the U.S.

He plays to the fears of Americans by declaring President Obama has plans to bring 250,000 Syrian refugees into the country, and says, “We don’t know anything about them.” But, we do know about “them” because the vetting process for admitting persons to the U.S. is about two years; the U.S. in fiscal year 2016 plans to admit only 10,000 Syrian refugees.

The extreme right wing denounce President Obama for attending an elementary school in Indonesia where, they claim, he was indoctrinated in anti-American propaganda and became a Muslim. For the past 12 years, the right wing has referred to the president as Barack HUSSEIN Obama, emphasizing his middle name. What they don’t emphasize is that the Founding Fathers were adamant that there is a separation of church and state, and that no one religion is included or excluded from persons running for any office. Nevertheless, the President was baptized in the United Church of Christ and is a Protestant.

On the last day of the Democratic National Convention in July, Khizr Khan, the father of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in combat in Iraq, asked Trump if he “even read the United States Constitution. I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words ‘liberty’ and ‘equal protection of law.’” After pulling a pocket-sized Constitution from his suit jacket, he then asked, “Have you ever been to Arlington Cemetery? Go look at the graves of brave patriots who died defending the United States of America. You will see all faiths, genders, and ethnicities. You have sacrificed nothing—and no one.”

Some of Trump’s advisors claimed the Khans, who are Muslims who emigrated from Pakistan, could have been terrorists—Trump himself didn’t rebuke them for their comments—and then insensitively said he also sacrificed because he “created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures. I’ve had tremendous success. I think I’ve done a lot.” He also challenged Ghazala Khan, Capt. Khan’s mother who, he said, had stood mute besides her husband and had “nothing to say. She probably—maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.” Ghazala Khan responded in a commentary in the Washington Post that she told her husband she could not overcome her grief to speak because “hearts of pain can never heal as long as we live. Just talking about it is hard for me all the time. Every day, whenever I pray, I have to pray for him, and I cry. The place that emptied will always be empty.”

There is also a strain of anti-Semitism in the base of Trump’s hard core supporters. With Hillary Clinton increasing her lead over Trump, according to several polls, Trump replaced campaign chair Paul Manafort with Steve Bannon, who had been CEO of Breitbart News, an extreme right-wing online news site that promotes white nationalism and opposes immigration of individuals who would be part of minority cultures in the United States. Bannon’s ex-wife, Mary Louise Piccard, accused him of anti-Semitism during a child custody fight in 2007. In a sworn statement to the court, she said Bannon opposed sending their twin daughters to the Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles. “The biggest problem he had with Archer is the number of Jews that attend,” Piccard said. She also testified that Bannon said “he doesn’t like the way they [Jewish parents] raise their kids to be ‘whiny brats’ and that he didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews.” A spokesman for Bannon denied the truth in Piccard’s statements.

An individual created a print ad of a picture of Hillary Clinton, with a red Star of David over a stack of $100 bills; inside the Star in white lettering was “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” That anonymous person, who regularly posts anti-Semitic material, then posted the graphic on Twitter. Trump never disavowed the anti-Semitism of that graphic, and re-tweeted it to his 11 million followers. He later said it wasn’t a Star of David but a depiction of a sheriff’s badge, but sent out another tweet, this time with the words in a circle instead of the Star of David.

Several Jewish journalists who have covered the campaign and have written stories about Trump and his campaign report they have received anti-Semitic email from Trump supporters; Trump himself, while insensitive to Jews, may not be anti-Semitic.

A few of Trump’s advisors are Jews, and his daughter, Ivanka, converted to Judaism in 2009. However, most Jews are liberals who are willing to stand up for the rights of all minorities and are strong advocates of social justice. They see in Trump personality traits that that remind them of more than four millennia of anti-Semitism from numerous rulers, demagogues, and masses who believed their own problems were caused by Jews and other minority religions and cultures.

Hillary Clinton said Trump “is taking hate groups mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the Republican Party.” She accuses him of being “xenophobic, racist, misogynistic,” and asked, “If he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans?” Trump’s response was to criticize Clinton and the Democratic party for using race-baiting and fear mongering tactics. At a campaign rally this past week in Jackson, Miss., he blurted out, “Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human-beings worthy of a better future. She’s going to do nothing for African Americans. She’s going to do nothing for the Hispanics. She’s only going to take care of herself, her husband, her consultants, her donors—these are the people she cares about. She doesn’t care what her policies have done to your communities. She doesn’t care.”

Most of the 13.4 million Americans who voted for Trump in the primaries are White middle-class individuals who believe they are alienated from the political and business worlds, and are willing to follow a billionaire businessman running for the presidency who can channel their bar-room hate. Of the 2,472 delegates to this year’s Republican National Convention, only 18 were Blacks. Trump never protested or even discussed how the Republicans should be doing more to get diversity within the party. Trump’s campaign rallies are dominated by Whites. No matter what he says or does, that isn’t likely to change.

When many of the extreme right-wing look into mirrors, they see Donald Trump.

[Dr. Brasch, an award-winning journalist, has covered government and politics at all levels for four decades. His latest book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Gain.]

Race Issues Dominate White House Race

by Walter Brasch
(part 1 of 2)

      Donald Trump, who is commanding all of 1 percent of Black voters, according to an impartial Quinnipiac poll, says he could get as much as 95 percent of the Black vote in a second term. In June 2011, he had said, “I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” It’s nothing less than political hyperbole in a campaign for a first term, and meant to get a few thousand more votes in key states. However, Trump’s past actions don’t mitigate whatever future plans he has.

      In 1973, the Department of Justice sued Trump Management for civil rights violations for refusing to rent apartments to Blacks and Latinos who wished to live in complexes that housed mostly whites. Trump, who was the corporation’s president at the time, agreed he would drop a $100 million counter-suit, would provide lists of vacancies in the 14,000 apartments Trump Management owned, and would cease discriminating against minority applicants in exchange for the Department of Justice dropping felony charges. Three years later, the Department of Justice again filed against Trump for not fulfilling his promise.

      Trump previously had declined invitations to speak to conventions of the NAACP, Urban League, and the National Association of Black Journalists. However, with Hillary Clinton’s polling numbers rising and his decreasing, he has begun talking with Black and Hispanic groups.

      He is outspoken in his hatred for President Obama, and is a leader of the “birther” movement that claims the president was born in Kenya and, thus, unqualified to be president. But, the birthers, who clinging to the flimsiest of all evidence to discredit the nation’s first Black president, refuse to understand that Barack Obama’s birth certificate was issued by a Hawaiian hospital and that his mother was an American citizen, making him an American citizen.

      Trump has called Black Lives Matter a “threat,” and vowed if he is president he would tell his attorney general to investigate the group. He didn’t say if he would investigate White Lives Matter or numerous militant white nationalist groups that support his campaign. He never repudiated the support of Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke or of campaign contributions by white supremacists and racists.

      Trump claims, with no evidence, that Afghanistan is “safer than living in some of our inner cities,” and vowed if he were president he would eliminate crime in the inner cities. He didn’t say how he would do that, but he may be hiding a team of magicians in his advisory cabinet.

      In a campaign appearance in Wisconsin last week, he told Blacks they should vote for him because, “You live in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?” He might just as well have smeared burnt cork on his face and called himself Rastus.

      On June 16, 2015, the day he announced he was running for president, Trump declared, “When Mexico sends its people [to the U.S.], they’re not sending their best. . . . They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.” The first reality is that Mexico doesn’t send anyone to the U.S.; they come without government assistance or sanction. The second reality is that most immigrants from Mexico and central America countries are not criminals, rapists, or those who have problems; most are hard-working people who wish to improve their lives and live on the fringes of American society, often working in low-wage jobs, trying to blend into American culture, without drawing attention to themselves. They don’t receive welfare, food stamps, or free medical and hospital care. That’s because most don’t apply for those benefits because they don’t want to attract attention that could lead to their deportation. There’s a third reality. Trump and many of his followers don’t recognize that Mexico has significant restrictions on gun purchases, and most guns used by the cartels come from the United States. The criminals who do come into the U.S. come with American-made guns.

      Nevertheless, Trump’s solution to the immigration problem is to round-up and deport 11 million undocumented persons from many countries. To make sure the U.S. is safe from immigrants, he has trumpeted a call to build a 25–55 foot tall wall stretching almost 2,000 miles on the U.S./Mexico border, and have Mexico pay for the $15–25 billion construction cost. The estimate doesn’t include the yearly cost of adding border patrol agents and equipment or the cost of sending the undocumented workers back to their native countries. He also hasn’t addressed concerns about Mexican and central American workers digging vast and elaborate tunnels beneath the walls, nor illegal immigration by those who slip past the Coast Guard and enter the country by private plane or boats. There’s also no provision to fence off the northern border with Canada; apparently, Trump believes white-skinned Canadians are more acceptable than brown-skinned Mexicans. Of course, there’s another reality—Canadians, for the most part, have little desire to emigrate to the U.S.

      Trump said federal judge Gonzalo Curiel could not be objective in a case involving fraud charges against Trump University because “he’s a Mexican.” Curiel, a former federal prosecutor, was born in Indiana. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) called Trump’s statements “racist.” Other Republican politicians have begun distancing themselves from Trump. Nevertheless, trying to capture votes from the Hispanic community, on Cinco de Mayo this year Trump tweeted a photo of himself eating a taco bowl in a restaurant in Trump Tower, and said, “I love Hispanics.”

      The Mexican newspaper Milenio said Trump was “the man who managed to make us miss the Bush clan.”

     [Tomorrow: Part 2—Donald Trump’s views about Jews and Muslims. Dr. Brasch is an award-winning journalist who has covered government and politics at all levels for four decades. His latest book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Gain.]

The Quotable Contradictory Donald Trump

by Walter Brasch

      The man formerly known as The Donald is entwined in a ball of contradiction.

      He was a registered Republican until 2001 when he became a Democrat, and then eight years later switched back to the Republican party. He says he believes in democracy, but also says if he loses Pennsylvania in the November general election it will be because the election is rigged.

      He campaigns on a platform that boldly proclaims him to be an outsider to politics and a great business executive who will “Make America Great Again!” But Trump is not an outsider—he has the presence to command legislators, lobbyists, and business executives from the highest levels. Although he claims to be worth about $10 billion, companies under his control have filed for bankruptcy four times—Trump says it’s just good business practice; if he becomes president, he won’t have that option to reduce the nation’s debt. He believes the U.S. is the best place to live, but uses an empty campaign slogan to rally his hard-core ultra-right base of voters.

      He says he’s a “nice guy,” but this “nice guy” committed adultery with several women, constantly uses profane language, opposes unions and minimum wage, has refused to pay the full bill to dozens of contactors, and mocked a New York Times reporter who has a disability.

      He demanded seeing 10 years of tax returns of all finalists to be his vice-president, but has refused to release his own income tax filings.

      He once supported the ban on assault weapons and believed there should be “a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun.” But, in his run to the presidency he now says, “Government has no business dictating what types of firearms good, honest people are allowed to own,” and basks in the glow of an NRA endorsement and NRA-sponsored TV ads. He erroneously claims Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to “take your guns away.” Early this year, while campaigning in New Hampshire during the primaries, had said, “The Second Amendment is so important, they’re not going to take your guns away.” In a campaign speech, he said he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot people and I wouldn’t lose voters.”              

      He was pro-choice until he began his run for the presidency when he became pro-life. He says he would block funding for Planned Parenthood because it supports abortion, although federal law currently bans public funds being used for abortion; only 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s budget goes to abortion expenses and only 10 percent of client services are abortion related.

      He said in 2011 he opposed same-sex marriage, but less than four years later said gay marriage is a reality, but each state should determine if it condones or condemns same-sex marriage.

      Trump never objected to the support he received from Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, but faced by a reality that a Washington Post poll determined fewer than 6 percent of Blacks say they would feel comfortable with him as president, now says, “No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton’s policies than African-Americans.” Using a racial stereotype, he asks Blacks, “What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”

      He pompously claims his IQ “is one of the highest—and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.” But, he disregards the voice of scientists and environmentalists, and planted himself in the corner with the ultra-conservative wing of the party when he tweeted in 2012 that global warming “was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.”

      China is also where most of his clothing line, and all of former wife Ivana’s clothing line are manufactured. Clothes not produced in China are produced in a dozen other countries. But, he invokes patriotism when he tells thousands of cheering supporters at his campaign rallies, “We need to bring manufacturing jobs back home where they belong.”

      He says he opposed the invasion of Iraq, but after George W. Bush ordered troops into Iraq, he supported the invasion. He says for several years he opposed invading Iraq, but now says it is sensible for the U.S. to send ground troops into Iraq to destroy ISIS, although Russia will find itself in a quagmire for its campaign in Syria to destroy ISIS. He says he is “a very militaristic person, but you have to know when to use the military.” Somewhere in his logic, Trump, who believes in reducing the national debt, says the U.S. should take $1.5 trillion from Iraqi Oil and give $1 million to every family who lost someone in that war. He doesn’t say how the U.S. will be able to get $1.5 trillion in oil sales.

      In 2008, Trump had praised Bill and Hillary Clinton, declaring, “Hillary is smart, tough and a very nice person, and so is her husband. Bill Clinton was a great President. They are fine people. Hillary was roughed up by the media, and it was a tough campaign for her, but she’s a great trooper. Her history is far from being over.”

      But in 2016, Trump calls the Democrats’ nominee for president “Crooked Hillary” and “Lyin’ Hillary,” and claims that “without the woman card, Hillary would not even be a viable person to even run for a city council position.” He says she is unfit to be president. Apparently, he overlooked her six years as a U.S. senator and four years as secretary of state, and the fact he and the Clintons were bosom buddies just two years earlier. Trump has never been elected to any office nor has he ever served in government.

      Trump once declared, “The world is excited about Barack Obama and the new United States. Let’s keep it that way!” A year after Obama’s inauguration, Trump was equally enthusiastic: “What he [Obama] has done is amazing. The fact that he accomplished what he has in one year is truly phenomenal.” But, he has also been an attack dog, tenaciously holding onto a bone called “birther,” calling on President Obama to release his birth certificate to prove he wasn’t born in Kenya and constitutionally ineligible to be president. When the President released his birth certificate, proving he was born in Hawaii to a mother who was a U.S. citizen, Trump and the ultra right-wing challenged its legitimacy.

      Trump supported Sen. John McCain in his 2008 campaign for the presidency, but never challenged his citizenship; McCain was born in Panama.

      Trump struts, puffs out his chest, and says he supports the military, but took four deferments from service and managed to party, enjoy the life of being a millionaire’s son, and rise up in his father’s company during the Vietnam War. He said of Sen. McCain, who was confined to a North Vietnamese prison camp and tortured for five years and walks with a limp, “He is a war hero because he was captured [but] I like people who were weren’t captured.”

      Danish foreign minister Kristian Jensen says Trump “changes opinions like the rest of us change underwear.” Trump’s underwear may be clean, but his opinions are definitely soiled.

     [Dr. Brasch is an award-winning journalist who has covered government and politics at all levels for four decades. His latest book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.]

Taking the Wind out of Trump’s Energy Policy

by Walter Brasch

      Black letters against a yellow background. Black letters against white. White letters against black. On yard signs. On T-shirts. On baseball caps. All with the same message: “Trump Digs Coal.”

      Donald Trump says there are “ridiculous regulations [on coal] that put you out of business and make it impossible to compete.” He says if he is president, he would reduce those regulations. Those regulations that Trump doesn’t like are enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency to protect miners and the public.

      In speech after speech in the coal-producing states, he has said, “We’re going to get those miners back to work . . .  the miners of West Virginia and Pennsylvania . . .  [In] Ohio and all over are going to start to work again, believe me. They are going to be proud again to be miners.”  He also says the voters in coal-rich states “are going to be proud of me.”

      As expected, his comments are met by extended cheers. However, other than splashing rhetoric to get votes, he doesn’t say how he plans to put miners back to work, nor does he address the issues of the high cost to create “clean coal,” or that a president doesn’t have absolute power to reduce federal legislation. But his words sound good to the mining industry in Wyoming, West Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, the top five states in coal production.

      Trump is also a vigorous proponent of using fracking to extract natural gas and oil, a position that has led the American Energy Alliance (AEA) to endorse him for the presidency.  In 2012, Trump tweeted: “Fracking will lead to American energy independence,” a statement parroting a major argument of the oil and gas industry, but which is inaccurate. In March, he erroneously said, “Did you know, if they fracked in New York [which has a ban on fracking], New York would lower its taxes, would have no debt, would have made a fortune. Instead, Pennsylvania [which permits fracking] took all the money.” Like the AEA and Chambers of Commerce, he disregards the effects upon the environment and public health. But, he also sends a mixed message about fracking. He argues that local governments and voters should have the right to ban fracking. It is a position the oil and gas industry, as well as numerous politicians oppose, but which moderate environmental groups accept as a reality.

      Hillary Clinton is also trying to get votes and, like Trump, she sends a mixed message. She says she supports the use of fracking to extract oil and gas but has also said, “We’ve got to move away from coal and all the other fossil fuels,” and that  she has “long been in favor of states and cities within states making up their own minds whether or not they want to permit fracking.” When she was secretary of state, she spearheaded the development of the Global Shale Gas Initiative, which promoted fracking and the use of fossil fuel as an energy source. In 2010, Clinton told a meeting of foreign ministers, “Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel available for power generation today.” Two years later, she convinced Romania to overturn its ban on fracking and sign a 30-year mining lease with Chevron.

      Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico and the Libertarian party’s nominee for president, supports fracking but wants increased regulation and oversight. He says he will  “keep an open mind” about fracking, and argues, “the fact that in Pennsylvania you could turn your faucet on and get water before fracking, and afterwards you could light it—that’s a concern. That’s a real live concern.” Both Johnson and Bill Weld, former governor of Massachusetts and the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential nominee, are strong environmentalists.

      Dr. Jill Stein, a physician and the Green Party’s nominee for president, is the only major nominee to oppose fracking and the use of fossil fuel energy. In the 1990s, as an environmental activist, she was a leader in the protests against coal plants in Massachusetts. She and her party demand a ban on fracking, and push for the development of renewable energy. “In the real world,” says Stein, “wells leak and pipelines spill. The supposed climate benefits of burning natural gas are being revealed as nothing more than greenwashing by the fossil fuel industry.” Fracking, she says, “is a national threat to our water, our health, and our future [and] it’s time to work for a national ban on fracking and a just transition to 100 percent clean renewable energy by 2030.” 

      Several states have placed moratoriums on the use of fracking. In June 2013, the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee approved a resolution to establish a moratorium, but the party leadership ignored the will of the delegates. The delegates to the Democratic National Convention in June rejected a resolution to support a moratorium or ban on fracking.

      Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s primary opponent, is adamant that fracking must be banned in order to protect both the environment and health. However, in the West Virginia primary Sanders took 55 percent of the Democratic vote to Clinton’s 29 percent. In May, he said, the U.S. needs “to combat climate change to make our planet habitable for our children and our grandchildren, [but] we cannot abandon communities that have been dependent on coal and other fossil fuels.” He proposed spending $41 billion to “rebuilding coal mining communities and making sure that Americans . . .  all over this country receive the job training they need for the clean energy jobs of the future.”

      Pandering for votes and to the fears that unemployment and bankruptcies in the fossil fuel industry will increase under any administration other than his own, Donald Trump overlooks a reality that workers are not melded to their jobs. If given an opportunity, as Sanders and others have proposed, most skilled workers in the fossil fuel industry would leave the mines and the oil and gas fields to be re-trained for jobs in the cleaner renewable energy fields. Jobs in the fossil fuel industry decreased by 18 percent last year, according to a study by the Brookings Institute. Long-term losses could be 226,000 to 296,000 drilling-related jobs, according to the Institute. While the fossil fuel industry is cutting back on employment, jobs in solar energy increased by 22 percent last year, and jobs in wind energy increased by 21 percent. For the first time, jobs in the renewable energy industry are more than for the entire fossil fuel industry, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

      Trump, other politicians, and the conservative Chambers of Commerce that support fracking should be looking forward to renewable energy employment rather than backward at fossil fuel employment. If they do so, they will capture the voters not from fear but from opportunity.

      [Dr. Brasch is a social issues journalist and professor emeritus from the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. His current book is Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.]

     

Free Speech Not Present at Some Universities

by Walter Brasch

        Like most Jews, Benjamin Aaron Shapiro, a respected journalist, is an advocate for social justice, following the Jewish concept of Tikun Olam, literally translated as “repair of the world.” Unlike most American Jews, Shapiro is a conservative whose views of the nation are closer to those of Ted Cruz than of Bernie Sanders.

        Shapiro is a summa cum laude graduate of UCLA, and an honors graduate from the Harvard University school of law. He backs up his views and political philosophy with facts, historical allusions, and a strong interpretation of the Constitution. His conclusions and opinions, however, often go far outside what even the far-right believe.

        He says “Sesame Street” and “M*A*S*H” are left-wing propaganda, and “Happy Days” has a theme of pacifism. He is a strong proponent of gun rights legislation and an opponent of the “Black Lives Matter” social movement. His speeches, syndicated newspaper column, and his radio commentaries sometimes lead to civil disorder, often begun by those who don’t share his ultra-conservative views.

        One of Shapiro’s six books is Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth (2004), published shortly after he graduated from UCLA. What happened at a few universities affirms some of the argument in that book.

        In February, the president of Cal State/Los Angeles cancelled a forthcoming speech by Shapiro after students claimed what he had to say would be “hate speech.” President William Covina said Shapiro could speak at a time when a suitable opponent was found; however, Shapiro pointed out that Cal State allowed liberal speakers without having a conservative respondent. Covino reversed his position three days before the speech.

        On the day of the speech, several hundred students blocked the entrances of the Student Union Building, intimidating those who wanted to hear what Shapiro had to say, and blocking those inside the building from leaving. The Daily Caller, a conservative newspaper, reported there were several fights outside the building. Following the speech, students moved to the president’s office, held a sit-in, and demanded his resignation for allowing the speech. Cal State later charged Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), the sponsoring organization, $621.50 for additional security; it did not charge other organizations that brought speakers to the campus.

        In April, Shapiro spoke at Penn State; several dozen protestors shouted, banged on the doors to Sparks Hall, and played pre-recorded music at a high volume, trying to disrupt Shapiro’s speech, according to The Daily Collegian. The title of his speech was “When Diversity Becomes a Problem: The Fascist Nature of Liberalism.”

        Last week, DePaul University blocked an invitation by the YAF chapter to host Shapiro. Citing the Cal State and Penn State episodes, the 24,000 student Catholic university in Chicago, according to an official statement, “determined, after observing events which took place when Mr. Shapiro spoke elsewhere, that it was not in a position to provide the type of security that would be required to properly host this event at this time.” DePaul’s argument—one of safety—was a lame way to deflect criticism that it was blocking free speech. Certainly, a university with a large on-campus police force and a Campus Violence Prevention Plan and the ability to ask local community police for additional protection should not have been able to hide beneath the cloak that the words of one person threatened campus security.

        In 1644, before the English parliament, poet John Milton boldly spoke out against censorship, arguing that mankind is best served when there is a “free and open encounter” of all ideas. It was a revolutionary concept in an empire that required printers to get a license and be subjected to the whims not only of a monarch but the government as well. “Let her [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?” Milton rhetorically asked.

        In the 18th century, Lord Blackstone, one of the kingdom’s most distinguished jurists, spoke against prior restraint of free speech and of the press. The views of Milton and Blackstone became a basis of The First Amendment, one of the most liberal parts of the U.S. Constitution. It was this amendment that assured freedom of the press, speech, and religion; that amendment allows people to peacefully assemble and, if they wish, to protest government actions; it gives the people the right to petition the government for a “redress of grievances.”

        During the next two centuries, others cemented this belief into American law. In the mid-19th century, philosopher John Stuart Mill stated, “We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion, and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.” At the beginning of the 20th century, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that democracy is best served in “a marketplace of ideas.”

        The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed by the United Nations after World War II, declares “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion . . . [and] the right to freedom of opinion and expression, which implies the right . . . to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information regardless of frontiers, information and ideas through any media whatsoever.”

        America’s First Amendment applies only to government interference, and not to the suppression of free speech in the private sector. But, every university should be a place where all views are heard, analyzed, and debated. Professors in several departments—including history, political science, criminal justice, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and journalism—could have had discussions about Shapiro’s speech and made it a “teachable moment” within the confines of their own discipline.

        Instead of blocking opposing views, students should be aware that the solution to shutting down opposition beliefs is not by censorship or prior restraint, but in applying Milton’s belief that facts and civil discourse will allow truth to emerge.

        [Dr. Brasch, an award-winning journalist and professor emeritus of mass communications/journalism from Bloomsburg University, is a liberal Jew and an ACLU member and officer. For more than four decades, he has been an outspoken advocate in defending the First Amendment rights of all people, no matter what their political, religious, or philosophical views are. His current book is FrackingAmerica: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit. The book includes numerous examples of how local and state governments, working with the oil/gas exploration industry, have breached First Amendment rights.]