David Horowitz at Brooklyn College

A student, Yosef Sobel, decided to invite David Horowitz to Brooklyn College in response to campus protests. The campus protesters pretended to be Israeli military officers stopping students at checkpoints. I was impressed that Yosef, an undergraduate, found a way to arrange Horowitz's visit in response. Nevertheless, two different professors normally involved with Middle Eastern and Judaic studies refused to sponsor the event. (The College would not permit an event that at least one faculty member would not sponsor.) I offered to do so. Horowitz is a dramatic speaker. I hadn't attended a campus event of this kind before and was disturbed at the overt anger, thinly distinguishable from violence, on the part of the anti-Horowitz protesters in the room. Their intent was to stifle Mr. Horowitz and those who agree with him. At the conclusion of the talk I asked the chief protester to give a response to Mr. Horowitz. Failing to address any of Horowitz's points, he responded with an inarticulate series of insults. His confederate on the other side of the room screamed at the room filled with yarmulke-clad Jews, "This is a bunch of Nazis." The event was a success largely because one of CUNY's trustees lent his support. He insisted that the university's chief security officer oversee a concerted security effort that involved a metal detector search of each attendee. Speech on campus is not free, unless one expresses a left wing viewpoint. Without the trustee's influence, campus security would have failed to provide security, and the protests may have become violent. As faculty sponsor I was able to control the audience to some degree only because of the security, which, in the end, suggests why check points are necessary in Israel.