At several schools, including Central Michigan University and Florida Gulf Coast University, administrators banned the display of American flags, pro-war posters, and stickers saying "Proud to Be an American" on the grounds that foreign students might be offended. (In most cases, such directives were reversed after a public outcry). At Duke, a professor's Web site was shut down after he endorsed strong military action against countries that sponsor terrorism; it was later reinstated, but with an unprecedented disclaimer that the views promoted on it do not reflect those of the university.
Perhaps the most outrageous case is that of Kenneth Hearlson, a political science professor at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California, who had the temerity to say in his "Contemporary Politics" class a week after September 11 that Muslims who failed to condemn radical Islamic terrorism were in effect condoning it. Four Muslim students in the class lodged a complaint, claiming that Hearlson had called them "terrorists" and "Nazis," accusing them of direct complicity in the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings.
Hearlson was immediately put on paid leave. Luckily for him, an audiotape of the class showed that he did not accuse any student, directly or indirectly, of being a terrorist. While the professor was reinstated, he still received a letter of reprimand from the school for potentially offensive classroom remarks. His accusers, meanwhile, suffered no penalty for making demonstrably false charges.
There have been troubling attacks on free speech from pro-war quarters as well, such as the appalling incident in which Sacramento Bee publisher Janis Besler Heaphy, a commencement speaker at California State University at Sacramento, was heckled and booed off the stage after she expressed concern that civil liberties might be endangered in the war effort. (Attorney General John Ashcroft's recent admonition to those who express concern about the erosion of liberty that "your tactics only aid terrorists" is not that far removed from the hecklers' mentality.)
At the same time, it seems clear that campus political correctness, 1990s-style, is alive and well today. Even after the attacks on America, this left-wing brand of McCarthyism has lost none of its self-righteousness or intolerance.
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