‘Real Time’ meets the ‘safe space’

A vocal minority of students on the campus of (insert college) have decided they don’t like (insert speaker) who is scheduled to deliver the commencement address. These same students often advocate hate speech, and use the hecklers veto to suppress free speech. They are skilled at using political correctness to silence voices they disagree with – accusing (insert target) of being a “bigot” and or “racist.” They work anxiously scaring administrators into submission, encouraging an implicit disregard of the First Amendment in order to keep the peace.

Same script, same agitators, different campus.

{mosads}This time our familiar story takes place on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley. Muslim students are taking issue with liberal comedian Bill Maher and have their progressive peers following their lead. The irony is that Maher is now being condemned for his vocal opposition to Islamic vehemence against women, gays and minorities: all values the UC Berkeley campus has been touting since the 1960’s.  

It’s a clash of civilizations: Real Time meets the “safe space” of the modern day university.

“Bill Maher is a blatant bigot and racist who has no respect for the values UC Berkeley students and administration stand for,” the petition states. “Bill Maher’s public statements on various religions and cultures are offensive and his dangerous rhetoric has found its way into our campus communities.”

While attempting to prevent Maher from speaking on campus is in itself a cause for concern, the selective outrage of students is cause for further vexation.

The organizers of the petition are themselves guilty of what they are protesting as documented in the video “The Jewish Voices on Campus.” The YouTube sensation, which has surpassed 70,000 views, details anti-Semitism on North American college campuses.

According to UC Berkeley student Henry, “the issue is that we do experience a lot of anti-Semitism in a lot of different ways.”

“An Israeli student gets up. She says a piece very pro-Palestinian, very pro-Israeli,” he describes later in the video. “Let us help you, we want to work with you. She tries to walk into her Arabic class the next day and gets booed out of class.”

Bigotry and anti-Semitism is institutionalized at Berkeley – yet the voices working to suppress Maher’s opinion have never previously brought about a petition to stop it.

On Sept. 23, led by Berkeley professor Hatem Bazian, students called for the murder of innocent Israelis in the form of an “intifada.” Students at the protest chanted, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” which is a genocidal chant that calls for the removal of Israel from the map.  Soon after the protest one student told me that they feared for their life. Bazian, who publicly advertised the “Day of Action against Israel” is now encouraging people to boycott Maher.

Anti-Israel activism at Berkeley even turned violent in 2010 when Husam Zakharia, the president of the UC Berkeley chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), rammed pro-Israel student Jessica Felber with a shopping cart. Felber was holding a poster reading “Israel Wants Peace.”

Perhaps the students who want to “protect all students and uphold a standard of civility,” as they wrote in the petition, can reexamine the current state of day-to-day affairs at the school.

As for Maher, he is an equal opportunity critic of all religion. Of Christianity he has remarked, “I love Jesus. I just don’t like the Christians who believe in what he says.” In 2013 he said on his show Real Time that “based on every statement out of any Republican in the last two years the Israelis are controlling our government.” He has also encouraged Catholics to quit their religion. And in line with his previous criticism of other religions, during the past year Maher has taken issue with Islam and the violent extremism that has accompanied the faith in numerous parts of the Middle East and North Africa.

Which makes Maher a tantalizing commencement speaker. He can be offensive and he can certainly be out there. But let the students decide- Maher’s alleged “racism” and “bigotry” should be blatantly obvious to a neutral observer who should at the very least be given the right to hear and think. 

Mael is a senior at Brandeis University, a reporter for TruthRevolt.org and a contributor to the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.