Sorry, no safe spaces
Those who purport to be guardians of academic freedom rightly decry the chilling winds that blow on college campuses — and urge students who clamor for “safe spaces” free of upsetting ideas to grow a spine. Mature people understand: Bombthrower Ann Coulter should be permitted to speak, particularly at a public university. So, for good measure, should alt-right troublemaker Milo Yiannopoulos and white supremacist Richard Spencer.
But without a flicker of self-awareness, some of the very same voices urging students to grow up now aim to silence Linda Sarsour, tapped by the City University’s School of Public Health to be its June commencement speaker.
They are joined by local Jewish leaders, among them Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who are urging Gov. Cuomo to intervene.
Cuomo should stay far from this fray. Sarsour would not have been our choice for this high honor, but her right to deliver the address ought not be in question.
A commencement speech, given as students receive their degrees, holds a privileged position. All graduating students attend, which gives the speech a higher burden to be unifying.
Sarsour is not unifying. She supports the effectively anti-Semitic movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israel — singling out for opprobrium and punishment the world’s only Jewish nation.
She once tweeted a photo of a young boy with rocks in each hand facing a dozen or so Israeli police with the words “the definition of courage.”
“Nothing is creepier than Zionism,” she wrote another time. She has argued against bans on Sharia law, calling it “misunderstood” and unfairly “pushed as some evil Muslim agenda.”
Sarsour rebuts accusations of anti-Semitism. She raised thousands of dollars to help repair a vandalized Jewish cemetery, proclaiming the donations an act of generosity by Muslims “in solidarity with our Jewish sisters and brothers.”
In recent months, she has gained notoriety not for her anti-Israel statements but for her role in organizing the Women’s March on Washington.
Our sympathies are with those who will protest Sarsour. But as CUNY Chancellor James Milliken rightly affirmed in a statement Wednesday, purging a speaker based on a narrow ideological test leads down a dangerous road. Free speech, especially at a public institution of higher learning, is a far higher value. Let Linda Sarsour speak.