The University of Oregon student body has been learning some useful lessons in liberty as the campus debates what to do about an extremely controversial group's presence on campus. Last week, the student government narrowly voted to defend free expression when it voted down a resolution designed to push the group off campus for good.
The organization is the Pacifica Forum, a discussion group hosted on campus by an emeritus professor, as permitted by university rules. The group is so controversial, it appears, because every so often it discusses topics that a lot of people on campus find extremely offensive—such as the swastika or Nazism—well, not just because of the topics, but because some of the participants appear to the critics to be voicing far too much sympathy for ideas of white supremacy....
The group met at the university's Erb Memorial Student Union until a few weeks ago, when it met in a larger space than usual because of the expectation of hundreds of protesters for the discussion of the swastika on January 15. The protesters came and disrupted the event.
The disruption appears to have been organized by student government president Emma Kallaway, and Vice President Getachew Kassa who, according to the Oregon Commentator's January 25 issue, helped to coordinate a rally prior to the disruption:
"We wanted to create fear and anger in the forum, and we accomplished that today," said Kassa. [emphasis added]
Of course, the irony here is the only fascism practiced in this situation was by Kallaway and Kassa who admit they wanted to use fear to intimidate their political opponents.
Mussolini couldn't have said it better himself.
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