The Observer, January 27, 2006
Volume XXXVIII, Issue 14
Free Speech Zone: Guest speakers should be chosen responsibly
To the Editor:
Case's University Programming Board, which funds its programs through our mandatory student activity fees, has announced proudly that it will be bringing Harry Belafonte to campus. The famed singer has been renowned for years as one of the essential figures of the early Civil Rights movement. As the event's publicity e-mail noted, "It was he who bailed Martin Luther King out of a Birmingham jail…It was he who helped to organize the March on Washington. Harry Belafonte railed against apartheid in South Africa." These accomplishments are great and any American who did so much to further the lives of so many deserves great accolades, but the e-mail gives little indication of what Belafonte has been doing recently. Let me give you a taste.
Last August he was asked what he thought about so many blacks holding high-level positions in the Bush administration. He called these public servants "black tyrants." He then made this comparison: "Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich." Excuse me? Belafonte considers the Bush Administration analogous to the Third Reich, and his black colleagues acquiescent to tyranny. Belafonte continued this line of thinking last weekend by comparing the Department of Homeland Security to the Nazi Gestapo.
A few weeks ago he was in Venezuela meeting with Fidel Castro's good buddy Hugo Chavez. He proudly proclaimed to those present and millions more on television that President Bush is "the greatest terrorist in the world."
I understand that political diversity is essential to a well-functioning academic institution. I have no problem with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Leonardo DiCaprio, Jerry Springer, and Dennis Kucinich visiting campus, even though I agree with them on almost nothing. But do we need to pay thousands of students' valuable dollars to listen to Harry Belafonte compare the leader of the free world to Hitler? I don't care what anyone thinks about the president's policies and beliefs: comparing him to Hitler and Osama is simply disgusting. I am not holding my breath for our student programmers to invite William Buckley Jr., Thomas Sowell, or Rich Lowry to campus, but do we really need to spend our money this way? Were all of the thoughtful speakers booked this spring? I hope that all Case students will show UPB how we feel about this use of student activity money and avoid this speech.
Christopher Thomas
Undergraduate Student
