Why is U of Toronto Funding Angry Leftwing Speech?

Radical speakers Ward Churchill and Angela Davis were free to say what they wanted at a U of Toronto event this week. But why were they paid with student fees?

I am a second-year undergraduate student at the University of Toronto. My school this week invited to speak on campus two American radicals: Ward Churchill and Angela Davis. Churchill is best known for describing the victims of the September 11 attacks as “little Eichmanns.” Davis is a self-described “prison abolitionist” who nonetheless accepted an award from the East German government. On February 2nd, I sat down in Convocation Hall, the university’s 1,600-seat auditorium, to hear what Churchill and Davis had to say.

Churchill, the less coherent of the two, spoke first, beginning with a lament for the Mississauga Indians who (he claimed) had once held the land on which the university is located. He rambled on for almost an hour, the overarching theme, such as it was, being the importance of “speaking truth in the teeth of power” and his own persecution for doing so. There was the obligatory segue into the Middle East: “Is it illegal to make reference to Israeli apartheid here [in Canada]?”

Davis, too, had a lot to say about Israel and the Jews, describing the ongoing protests in Egypt as “all about the Palestinians.” Later, in response to a question, Churchill proudly proclaimed that he has “never, ever forsworn armed struggle” in the name of social change. Thunderous applause. When Churchill spoke of challenging the American government, yelps of “yes!” reverberated through the hall. A mention of the Canadian military was met with a cry of “scumbags!”

I do not believe that Churchill and Davis should be silenced; they have every right to say whatever demented thing pops into their heads. I do, however, take exception to being compelled to pay for it out of my student fees and the hypocrisy of school speech rules sticks in the craw. In the last year, three right-of-center commentators have been prevented by violence or threats of violence from speaking at Canadian universities: Canadian journalist Christie Blatchford, and American writers Daniel Pipes and Ann Coulter. By contrast, the disgraced British parliamentarian George Galloway was given a hero’s welcome at York University late last year by a student-fee supported student organization. The opposition of the 1960s is the establishment of today, and time and responsibility have moderated it not in the slightest.

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