Opinion: What about conservative speakers scares left-wing college protesters so much?

To the editor: Protesting is a right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. Preventing someone from speaking is not protected. (“Shutting down campus speech is a great way to lose an argument,” editorial, April 11)

Those protesters who tried to prevent conservative author Heather Mac Donald from speaking at Claremont-McKenna College should be ashamed of themselves. Our nation is made better by vigorous political debates.

I recall when American Nazi George Lincoln Rockwell spoke at UCLA in 1967. Those of us who were disgusted by his political views did not prevent him from speaking. Instead, when Rockwell took the stage at Royce Hall, we silently stood up and turned our backs to him. We did not shout him down, we did not rush the stage, and we did not prevent him from expressing his views.

If one is confident in his or her beliefs, then there is no reason to prevent a person with opposing views from expressing them. But those who lack confidence in their beliefs will seek to prevent a person with opposing views from speaking.

Andrew C. Sigal, Valley Village

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To the editor: The recent student action at Claremont-McKenna reaffirms why some students are called sophomores. Trying to prevent disturbing opinions by disruption is as ineffective as J.D. Salinger’s character Holden Caulfield’s effort to eliminate graffiti by erasing it from the walls.

I would urge students to move beyond the sophomoric to realize a university’s gift to society is to provide a protected place where the free exchange of all ideas is encouraged. That indefatigable voice of democratic liberalism, John Stuart Mill, understood the necessity of this principle when he told us society is “no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”

In 1970, then-Gov. Ronald Reagan closed 28 public college campuses in California to prevent protests over the Kent State killings. A few of us, recalling another Millsean notion — that truth emerges stronger by collision with error — fought to keep the schools open; I would implore that we do the same today.

A. Lee Brown Jr., Lake San Marcos, Calif.

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