At Vanderbilt, Muslim Students Demand Silencing of Speech

Muslims, even American Muslims, have no concept of irony or internal contradiction, it appears. They use their free speech to demand the muzzling of free speech. They demand the silencing of criticism in order to prove that they are peaceful and benign.

Vanderbilt students rally against hate speech

"Students, faculty and community members marched on Vanderbilt University's campus Saturday afternoon to protest hate speech and bigotry, following the publication of Professor Carol Swain's op-ed in The Tennessean.

Swain wrote the article "Charlie Hebdo attacks prove critics were right about Islam," which first ran online Thursday in tennessean.com and in print on Friday.

The demonstrators gathered on Liberty Lawn near the campus library under near-60-degree temperatures and demanded that Vanderbilt officials condemn Swain's comments and declare that the campus is free of intolerance and hatred against its students.

"This protest is not about Carol Swain," said rally organizer and student Farishtay Yamin. "I have no doubt that she is an educated, informed woman and she has been a member of our faculty for 16 years. This protest is about the fact that a member of Vanderbilt's faculty attacked her own students, that a member of the faculty published hate speech against the very young adults that she seeks to inspire."

Actually not claiming that what Swain said is false, the student protest organizer claims it is an attack, this truth telling, and must be stopped because: hate. Hate to hear the actual truth? Well of course; it is intolerant to tolerate that which annoys me.

"Yamin also read a statement she said was from provost, which said: "… we in no way condone or support the views stated in the [op-ed] and we understand they are deeply offensive to many members of our community, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. We are fully committed to ensuring our campus is safe and welcoming to all. Closely related to this commitment is our support of free speech, which is put to the test when polarizing speech such as is this is shared. It is in these times more than ever when we must keep dialog."

Undauted, Swain responded:

Swain did not attend the rally. However, she posted the following statement on her Facebook page Saturday morning: "Why are today's university students so fragile they need counseling and affirmation whenever they hear something that makes them uncomfortable? Learning how to deal with your emotions is part of growing up."

Given that the totalitarian nature of the student's demands are to eradicate freedoms which are inconvenient for Islam, their actions prove the point which they are trying to silence. Their attitude toward western freedoms is eliminationist. Hence, they are the very danger to which Swain refers. They are intellectually locked out of freedom to think by their hive ideology. They are obliged to respond to western freedoms in the immoral lockstep of preventing others from thinking too.

For Islam and Muslims, that is their definition of "tolerance, freedom, and personal comfort". It's also the totalitarian definition of those principles.