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Paul Geary
David Rogers
By Tom Elia
April 14, 2005
The New Editor
Conservative political activist David Horowitz spoke at the University of Texas in Austin
Wednesday night, and the audience in attendance -- hosted by the University of Texas
chapter of the Federalist Society -- was forced to witness more of the rude and boorish
behavior one has sadly begun to expect from leftist protesters on college campuses.
By my count, the protesters disrupted Horowitz at least four separate times with shouts or
rants from the audience. At least another eight times during the lecture protesters let off
high-pitched noisemakers (sounding much like the starting horns one associates with racing
events). At other times, the protesters loudly stamped their feet or slapped open palms on
desks.
At one point, a young protester admonished Horowitz to "Stop lecturing us!" This of course
was a strange request to yell from the top of one's lungs, as Horowitz was in fact there to
give, well, a lecture.
But that didn’t seem to faze the protesters, who loudly complained that their 'free speech'
was being trampled when they were threatened with removal for their outbursts.
Clearly, Horowitz is a provocative and often prickly polemicist, and there are many who
disagree with his views. The two main subjects of his speech, leftist bias on US college
campuses and the Iraq war, are of course not uncontroversial (disclosure: I have worked
for Horowitz in the past, and while I bear him no ill will, our short-lived professional
relationship was in many ways like a mixture of oil and water).
But merely disagreeing with someone's viewpoint doesn't give people the right to disrupt the
airing of the other person’s views. It's called free speech for a reason.
Sadly, such civility was not afforded Horowitz.
A few minutes into his speech, Horowitz was interrupted first by one of the protesters, and
then another. Refusing to go on until the interruptions stopped, Horowitz insisted that sign-
holding protesters put their placards on the floor (the signs read "Stop the new blacklist,"
"No more intimidation. No more witch hunts," "Stop the new McCarthyism," "Dissent is not
terrorism," etc.).
University police denied Horowitz's request that the sign-holding protesters be removed
from the audience.
After the delay, he continued on with his speech, suffering through additional disruptions.
At one point a young woman was escorted out of the auditorium yelling, "America is a
racist country!"; another with a noise-maker was escorted out of the auditorium; after one
man was arrested inside the auditorium for disrupting the lecture, another woman got up
and started yelling, "Fascist bigot! Fascist bigot! Fascist bigot!"
As she was led out of the auditorium, other protesters followed her out, chanting, "Shame,
shame, shame" and "Let her go … let her go!"
While watching all of this occur I began to notice that the protesters, mostly in their early
twenties, seemed to be taking direction from two people. One, an older, dour man with
long, gray-streaked shoulder-length hair, and a thick beard, appeared to be perhaps in his
forties or fifties. Another, younger man, who wore a red T-shirt with the words, "Texas
State Employees Union" emblazoned across the front, also seemed to be giving directions
(or perhaps passing them on) to the protesters.
After the major burst of interruptions had passed, some protesters began to drift in and out
of the auditorium, whispering discreetly to one, then another, and then another fellow
protester.
Soon, some of the protesters took seats close enough to me so that I could almost hear
some of their whispered comments to one another.
Eventually, Horowitz wrapped up his lecture and began taking questions from the audience.
After answering a number of questions from the group, Horowitz called on one of the eager
young protesters, who politely had his hand up.
The young man went on to read a rambling statement about the "means of production" and
"slavery" and other things that I frankly tuned out after straining to hear a question
somewhere, anywhere, in what he was saying.
After trying to answer the statement-as-question, Horowitz asked another of the young
protesters sitting right behind me what he wanted to ask.
The well-spoken young man took issue with Horowitz's use of the term "leftist" and asked
him to clarify the term as he meant it.
After Horowitz answered the question, the young man, dissatisfied with the answer, asked
if he was "not a capitalist, not a communist, and not a socialist," what was he?
(I can report that the young man was not a 'bathist,' nor was he a 'showerist,' either.
Frankly, he was a 'ripist,' who needed to be introduced to a 'soapist,' if you get my drift.)
It was about that time that the older, dour-looking man with the long, gray-streaked,
shoulder-length hair, and the thick beard leaned over to the younger man and said, "This is
the time to educate our enemies."
Consider me educated there … Mr. Marx.
Tom Elia is a contributing editor to The New Editor.