Over the past decade supporters of the free exchange of ideas on campus have seen a correlation between panicked responses to terrorism and attacks on academic freedom and campus speech. It’s not surprising then that much of the commentary surrounding Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s Christmas Day attempt to blow up an airliner bound for the United States has focused on his time as a student and president of the Islamic Students Society at University College London.
Pundits on both sides of the Atlantic have railed at University College London, where Abdulmutallab studied, for allowing him to hold debates on the “War on Terror” and invite controversial speakers to campus. Their calls for universities to more closely monitor student organizations and restrict outside speakers echo the now familiar David Horowitz meme, that university students like Abdulmutallab will be brainwashed and indoctrinated by being allowed to hear potentially “anti-American” or “anti-western” views. These attacks on the right of students and faculty to invite and hear speakers of their choosing should be familiar to anyone who remembers the manufactured controversy over William Ayers or the calls to restrict middle-eastern studies following 9/11.
Luckily this argument has yet to gain much traction in the American media outside of passing references. Across the pond tabloids have been driving this attack on academic freedom to a fever pitch. An association of British University Administrators has established a task force that is considering potentially restricting and monitoring the activities of student organizations.
If these attacks are gaining traction at your campus, the Center is prepared to help students and faculty members everywhere in the U.S. defeat them once again.