Bully Pulpit

David Horowitz, whose provocative ad against reparations for slavery generated a firestorm on college campuses during the spring of 2001, assures the readers of “Uncivil Wars,” his self-serving account of that controversy, that the book’s “subject is not me, nor is it the advertisement that provoked such a reaction.” He claims that the subject of his book is an idea: the “dubious idea of reparations” and, in a larger sense, “the intellectual vulgarities of American universities in an age of ‘political correctness.’”

This is a misleading characterization of “Uncivil Wars,” which is, in fact, all about Horowitz and his in-your-face brand of confrontation. Reparations are an important symbol of black solidarity on college campuses, and his ad was calculated to stir raw emotions. If it was accepted for publication, he knew it would create a backlash against the editors who agreed to publish it. If it was rejected, he knew he could cry “censorship.” An editor at the Daily Princetonian, whose column Horowitz quotes in “Uncivil Wars,” got it exactly right when he wrote:

“Horowitz plays a clever game. He played it with several of our peer college papers in the past few weeks. And he won. When Horowitz submits an ad to a college paper, he hopes that one of two things will happen: Either the paper refused to print the ad, so he can tell the world that conservative ideas are being censored by the liberal college press, or the paper prints the ad and campus activists protest. Both ways, Horowitz gets what he wants.... “

Although Horowitz disputes the accuracy of this description, he acknowledges that he relished “the opportunity to bait the tiger in its lair” when he was invited to Princeton. Baiting is exactly the right word to describe his style. Although he devotes many pages of his book to proving that he is not a racist and, indeed, his animus is based not on the color of people’s skin but on their attitudes regarding race, he is a race-issue-baiter. It is a distinction likely to be blurred in the emotionally charged atmosphere Horowitz enjoys provoking.

His repeated claims that the ad was not “intentionally inflammatory” are unconvincing, and he fails to tell his readers that his tactic was not original. Several years ago a man named Bradley Smith used the same tactic when he submitted a Holocaust denial ad to college newspapers around the country.

Perhaps Horowitz omits this history from his account because he does not want to be associated with Holocaust denial, which is understandable. There is a considerable difference between what Horowitz has written, which is largely a matter of opinion, and what Smith wrote, which was demonstrably false. But their tactics are similar.

Horowitz is a master in the art of overstatement. He describes professor Charles Ogletree as exhibiting “hostility to America generally and to white Americans in particular.” Now I may lack some objectivity with regard to this accusation because Ogletree is my colleague at Harvard Law School, but in all the years I have known him, both as a student and as colleague, I have never heard him express anti-American or anti-white sentiments. Nor does Horowitz quote or cite a single word uttered by Ogletree, beyond his support for reparations, that would justify such a defamatory characterization.

Horowitz’s overstatements are not limited to his descriptions of individuals. They extend as well to the central thesis of his book, namely that there is a pervasive censorship of ideas in colleges all over the country and that conservative views cannot be expressed on most college campuses. He is certainly correct that there is a problem of political correctness on many college campuses as reflected in the childish speech codes that have been enacted in many places. But conservative clubs are alive and well on numerous college campuses.

Moreover, the conservative viewpoint is welcomed, indeed sought, by the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Review, the Weekly Standard, Fox Television and dozens of other media outlets. These media sources are available on college campuses. The conservative voice has a megaphone in Washington and is championed by many of the most powerful forces in America.

This is not to deny that some divisive ideas--particularly about race and gender--are unwelcome by administrators, faculty members and students in many colleges and universities. But Horowitz fails to understand--or more likely understands but fails to acknowledge--that his deliberately provocative ad was not well designed to test whether certain ideas are acceptable on college campuses but rather to test whether certain incendiary attacks on important racial symbols will provoke an emotional response. Despite this failure, he makes an important point.

Horowitz tells us that he was called a racist for expressing the idea that “white Americans died to free American slaves” and that he was characterized as “anti-black” for praising Jefferson and Lincoln as “heroes of liberty for all Americans.” This may be the case, but it is not representative of most college campuses, where many professors of history express those views routinely without criticism. It was most likely the manner by which Horowitz expressed these views, and the divisive context in which he offered them, that resulted in the emotional response he had surely anticipated.

Horowitz understands that he has provoked raw emotions. He repeatedly focuses on students bursting “into tears” or being unable to “perform basic functions like walking or sleeping because of this ad.” In this respect Horowitz is something of a bully, since he is a mature adult who knows how to take advantage of the sensitivities and emotions of young students. He may not be completely deaf about nuance and tone, but he is certainly “tone challenged” (to use a politically correct term he would despise) or else he deliberately turns off his tone aid when it comes to issues of race.

Does this mean that Horowitz should be compelled to attend “sensitivity training” on race dialogue? Or that he ought to be called a racist? Or that his speech should be silenced? Of course not. He should be criticized (or praised, depending on one’s perspective) in the marketplace of ideas both for the content of some of his views and for the manner by which he often expresses them.

Precisely because “Uncivil Wars” is a book about Horowitz and his style of inciting divisive and emotional reactions, its implications are somewhat limited. He does succeed in demonstrating that many students have thin skins, many faculty members limited vision and many administrators little courage when provoked by insensitive speech--and that such speech must be fully protected. He is naive to expect polite responses to his provocations. Provocateurs should not expect--as he apparently does--civil libertarians to rush to defend the substance of their views. Provocateurs shouldn’t whine--as he does--when they succeed in provoking irrational responses.

The lesson of this controversy is to refuse to take the bait of race issue baiters such as Horowitz. Always remember that they are seeking “the opportunity to bait the tiger in his lair.” Don’t fall for it. The answer to bad speech is not censorship. It is more and better speech.