Word: hjlsa
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...today outside Austin Hall at Harvard Law School, the Harvard Jewish Law Students Association (HJLSA), in conjunction with other student groups, will protest the anti-Jewish propaganda and terrorist activities of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The protests will immediately precede the appearance of Hasan Abdul Rahman, a registered agent of the PLO and the leading PLO propagandist in the United States...
...HJLSA unequivocally supports freedom of speech at Harvard and elsewhere. Freedom of speech includes the right to disagree with some one's point of view and to express this disagreement we reject, therefore, any assertion that our protest, which will not prevent Rahman from speaking, in any way interferes with the open exchange of ideas on campus...
...right to encourage the expression of unpopular views within the University community. If the formal right to free speech is not at stake, the practical, utilitarian rationale for unimpeded expression certainly is in suggesting that the Law School should not have invited Abu-Loghod to the conference, the HJLSA was effectively trying to close the door to alternative views--seeking to exclude the PLO because it found that group's activities objectionable. The GSA, too, sought to corner the market of ideas--in this case on homosexuality. In pushing for an investigation of the center Pattullo heads in response...
...University community than the exclusion of competing views. Except an educational issues, universities need not--and probably should not--have political ideologies, like support or oppositions to the PLO. They should, however, safeguard one set of values--that of pluralism, discourse and toleration. The gestures of the HJLSA and the GSA in trying to silence their critics, would undermine those values...
...HJLSA eventually settled on the proper approach, once it became clear that the Law School wasn't going to rescind its invitation to Abu-Loghod. Some 150 people protested outside the building an which she spoke, some loudly criticizing the PLO's tacties not Abu-Loghod's right to speak. That shows of strength probably did more to bolster the students position than excluding the rival speaker...