Campus Intoonfada The Right Way

A student forum at the University of California-Irvine on free speech displayed three of the notorious Danish cartoons of Muhammad yesterday. They also displayed three anti-semitic cartoons from Arab newspapers for comparison. Vigorous free speech was exercised by both sides in the controversy, but no one was threatened with beheading. The UC-Irvine administration commendably did not interfere with the forum.

"We're here to protect the First Amendment rights to free speech, and do so in way that's safe and secure," said UCI Dean of Students Sally Peterson in the Orange County Register.

The UC-Irvine's administration's support of free speech contrasts quite well with the cowardly behavior of the board of the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign student newspaper which earlier in February suspended two editors for running the cartoons.