Helen Thomas has done it again -- bad-mouthed Jews, that is.
Last week, Thomas said the White House, Hollywood, and Wall Street are owned by Zionists.
You may recall that Thomas was forced to resign her position as a Hearst Newspaper columnist last June, after she said that Israelis should get out of Palestine and go back to Poland, Germany, and other countries.
As a result of last week's mean-spirited words about Zionists by Thomas, Wayne State University in Detroit -- Thomas's alma mater -- decided to end the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award. The university considered her comments on Zionism to be anti-Semitic.
Thomas, in turn, blasted Wayne State for ending the award named for her, claiming the university "made a mockery of the First Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution in doing so.
So who is wrong in this situation -- Thomas or Wayne State? Actually, they are both wrong. Thomas is wrong because her comments are discriminatory toward American Zionists.
On the other hand, Wayne State is wrong in ending the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award as a means of retribution for her comments.
The fact is that an American university should be an institution that provides for a dialogue on a multitude of topics, including religion. This dialogue must allow for a freedom of expression and opinion of its discussants.
Failure to have a dialogue -- or ending it prematurely -- on a given topic does an injustice to the dialogue, in addition to being an insult to a university.
That said, by ending the Thomas award because of negative comments that Helen Thomas made about a religious group, conveys a paternalistic inflexibility and a denial of freedom of speech on the part of Wayne State University.
Indeed, by acting as it did in this situation, Wayne State has clearly illustrated that it is not cognizant of one of the primary roles of an American university; namely, the role of allowing freedom of opinion, even if that opinion may be in contrast to its own.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment