JOHN LEO'S BLOG

Along with Dinesh D'Souza and several other conservatives, I was the target of this kind of pre-emptive hecklers' veto at Columbia University several years ago. Accuracy in Academia had organized a two-day event titled "A Place at the Table: Conservative Ideas in Higher Education." Ward Connerly spoke the first night, enraging the campus by suggesting the forbidden notion that affirmative action isn't a good idea. Student activists pushed for a plan to drive the rest of the speakers off campus, lest they further pollute the place with more unapproved ideas.

The university's first ploy was to demand an enormous fee for security. When the sponsors surprised everybody by quickly handing over a check, the university had to invent another way to scuttle the event. On a ruling made at the house by then President George Rupp, the university decided to allow the speeches but to bar the large number of invitees from other campuses in the area—all out of safety concerns, of course. Rather than hold the event without all the registered people, perhaps half or two thirds of the expected crowd, the sponsors canceled the event.

My talk was going to be on the need for free speech on campus.