Earlier this month conservative writer David Horowitz attempted to take out full page ads in 52 college newspapers across the country. Many of the newspapers chose not to run the intentionally inflammatory ad, titled "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Are a Bad Idea For Black People–And Racist, Too." The papers which did run the ad have found themselves the subject of criticism from fellow students, spending the past few weeks emboiled in a ceaseless debate over their right to free speech. 

At Brown University, which printed the ad alongside an editorial disagreeing with its content but avowing the first amendment right to free speech, angry students threw away all but 100 of The Daily Herald’s 4,000 copies (and have since demanded that they be given equal space for free that the $725 Horowitz paid be
donated to charity. At Berkeley students stormed The Daily Californian’s offices, demanding an apology, and the paper promptly ran one on the front page of its next issue. Understandably, more than a few of the newspapers, including one at the University of Connecticut, are still debating whether to print the ad.

The Argus was not one of the papers Horowitz solicited, but we fully support the newspapers at colleges like Brown and the University of Wisconsin which ran the ad and still stand behind their actions. While it may have begun as a debate over race, Horowitz’s ad has stirred up a much needed discussion. He may have been attempting to air a conservative voice, but he has most importantly resurrected a reminder on the importance of preserving all free speech, even that which disgusts our well-honed liberal sensibilities.

Which is why the actions by students like those at Brown to suppress an opinion really rankle. After all, it was these practices of impartiality that were integral to the sucess of the Civil Rights movement. One argument that has been made in the wake of Horowitz is that freedom of speech does not apply to ads. However, in 1960 the New York Times ran a full-page ad entitled "Heed Their Rising Voices," which described abuses by the Montgomery police against civil rights protestors and soliciting money for the Dr. King and voting rights in the South. When L.B. Sullivan, Montgomery police commissioner, claimed libel and sued The Times for running the ad, the Supreme Court, quick to blow the cover off of Sullivan’s argument and expose it for the fallacy that it was.

As a newspaper, The Argus, or the Daily Herald, or even the New York Times, cannot be expected to stand behind everything that it prints. The one thing that gives a paper credibility is its responsibility to print the opinions thrown in its lap. Without this objectivity and refusal to cater its print to the opinions of its staff and readers, it’s just propaganda.

While The Argus not only disagrees with but finds Horowitz’s views wholly loathsome, we would like to encourage those college newspapers, such as the one at UConn, to run the ad and, if they disagree with it (as we assume is the case) to give equal space to an African-American studies scholar refuting Horowitz’s claims. We’d also like to ask students at these schools to use these newspapers as a forum for discussion, rather than silencing the messenger. As Horowitz has so clearly demonstrated, free speech can be an invaluably effective tool.