Latest news with #ClaremontMcKennaCollege
USA Today
22-05-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Salman Rushdie canceled? Pro-Palestinian groups hamper speech for everyone else
Salman Rushdie canceled? Pro-Palestinian groups hamper speech for everyone else | Opinion Salman Rushdie, who survived a brutal knife attack in 2022, canceled a speech at Claremont McKenna College after Muslim students condemned his invitation. Show Caption Hide Caption Assailant who stabbed author Salman Rushdie sentenced to 25 years The man who stabbed and partially blinded novelist Salman Rushdie onstage at a Western New York arts institute in 2022 was sentenced to 25 years in prison. I read novelist Salman Rushdie's harrowing account of his near-assassination about a year ago. It's still etched in my mind. In his memoir 'Knife,' Rushdie described in detail how he almost died in 2022 after being stabbed 12 times by a madman who hated Rushdie's work. The Booker Prize-winning author, who was blinded in one eye and is lucky to be alive, was giving a talk in New York about the value of free expression when he was attacked, which is tragically ironic. Not surprisingly, Rushdie is cautious now about where he speaks and appears in public. So, it caught my attention when I saw that he'd decided to withdraw as this year's commencement speaker at Claremont McKenna College, a private school in California. Rushdie made that call after student and local Muslim groups "condemned" Rushdie's invitation and said it was 'disrespectful' for him to step foot on the campus after he had – accurately – described pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses as supporting a 'fascist terrorist group' (AKA Hamas). This was too much for Rushdie, whose attacker was an Islamic extremist who wanted to murder the author because he had supposedly 'offended' Islam in his 1988 book 'The Satanic Verses.' 'I'm surprised, relieved and happy,' Claremont College Muslim Students Association president Kumail Afshar said after Rushdie backed out in fear. Opinion: I'm sorry Biden has cancer. But lies about his health make the timing suspicious. | Opinion That hardly seems like a victory: The protestors kept an entire campus from hearing from one of the world's most esteemed living writers. Canceling a speaker is not 'diversity and inclusion' Cancel culture and attacks on freedom of speech are nothing new on college campuses. Indeed, the 'diversity, equity and inclusion' mantra of recent years has only made it worse by pitting some people and groups against others. The rampant displays of antisemitism and violence on campuses following the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel in 2023 have made that fact crystal clear. Opinion: Not funny, John Oliver: Standing for religious liberty doesn't equate to 'hate' | Opinion In addition to the Muslim students who couldn't bear the thought of hearing from Rushdie, the Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations inserted itself into the debate. Ahead of the planned graduation speech, the CAIR chapter called on Claremont McKenna College to address students' concerns over Rushdie's 'troubling statements.' 'CMC cannot claim to value diversity and inclusion while dismissing the voices of its students,' CAIR wrote in a statement. In an interview last year, Rushdie had made the following observation: 'I feel that there's not a lot of deep thought happening. There's an emotional reaction to the death in Gaza, and that's absolutely right. But when it slides over towards antisemitism and sometimes to actual support of Hamas, then it's very problematic.' That's a perfectly reasonable analysis of what's been happening at U.S. colleges. Yet, this was too 'troubling' for the Muslim groups. It's hard to see how bullying someone, particularly someone who nearly died while advocating for free speech, into canceling an appearance is anywhere close to 'diversity and inclusion.' Intolerance of other views is antithetical to what our country is all about While the Muslim students have a right to express themselves, this incident is part of a troubling series of campus events where protests purportedly on behalf of Palestinians have turned raucous and violent. Jewish students and faculty have felt afraid. Robert Shibley, special counsel for campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told me that what happened to Rushdie doesn't fall neatly into the cancellation category since the college didn't withdraw its invitation in response to the backlash. Opinion: Ivy League is still struggling to figure out what's free speech – and what isn't. | Opinion But there's a good reason why it still rubs free speech advocates – and most Americans – the wrong way. 'Are we operating on a level where we are trying to win the battle of ideas simply by silencing the other side or making it impossible or uncomfortable or just generally difficult for the other side to speak?' Shibley said. 'I think that's why things like this stick in a lot of people's craw because you get the sense that this isn't the way a democratic society is supposed to be working out these kinds of issues.' Last week, Rushdie's attacker, Hadi Matar, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. At his sentencing, the judge told Matar that his violence wasn't only against Rushdie, but against free expression as well. 'It goes to the very heart of what our country stands for,' Foley said. I wish Rushdie had spoken at the commencement, regardless of the bullying, though it's perfectly understandable why he didn't. What's unacceptable is the intolerance shown for his right to speak. Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@ or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Shutting Down Salman Rushdie Is Not Going to Help
Free speech is forever a matter of perspective. Unless you are an absolutist—and very few true absolutists exist—everyone draws their red lines somewhere, whether it's at racist epithets or yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater when nothing is actually burning. But the concept becomes completely meaningless unless it allows for the hearing of ideas that one group or another is bound to find abhorrent. Salman Rushdie, the author who was nearly murdered three years ago because of a novel he wrote, once articulated what he thought supporting free speech meant: 'The defense of free expression begins at the point at which somebody says something you don't like.' Rushdie called this view 'old-fashioned,' and, in 2025, it might very well be: Just last week, he was pressured to cancel an appearance because of something he said that a group of students did not like. In an interview with a German podcaster a year ago, Rushdie expressed surprise that young people on college campuses protesting on behalf of Palestinians were not being more circumspect about the fundamentalism and murderousness of Hamas, who started the current Gaza war. 'I feel that there's not a lot of deep thought happening,' he said about the demonstrations. 'There's an emotional reaction to the death in Gaza, and that's absolutely right. But when it slides over towards anti-Semitism and sometimes to actual support of Hamas, then it's very problematic.' This past weekend, Rushdie was supposed to be the keynote speaker at Claremont McKenna College's commencement ceremony. The school's Muslim student association loudly protested his being 'platformed,' and they were backed up by the Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. On Wednesday, presumably because of this pressure, Rushdie pulled out. At the news, the exultant head of the Muslim student association responded, 'I'm surprised, relieved and happy.' On that podcast last year, Rushdie, who had lived for decades in hiding from the forces of extremism, was trying to offer a warning based on this experience, to make sure the protests avoided supporting 'a fascist terrorist group'—an organization that spares no thought for free expression. I'd like to give the students the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't see the irony in choosing to respond by seeking to foreclose his speech. [Read: Salman Rushdie strikes back] That these young people seem to have a mixed-up sense of free speech is not surprising; their elders are not doing much better. The Trump administration has sought to deport legal residents over their free speech. And this government intimidation has reached such a point that universities now seem to be engaging in what the historian Timothy Snyder has called 'anticipatory obedience.' In another news story from commencement season, a student named Logan Rozos, who was graduating from NYU's Gallatin School, took his opportunity at the mic to denounce 'the atrocities currently happening in Palestine' and 'complicity in this genocide.' NYU responded with a fury redolent of an X post from White House Communications Director Steven Cheung. 'He lied about the speech he was going to deliver and violated the commitment he made to comply with our rules,' a university spokesperson said about Rozos. NYU apologized to the audience who 'was subjected to these remarks' and said that Rozos would not be receiving his diploma. I find it impossible to read this as anything other than NYU, already under investigation by the administration for its DEI practices, overreacting out of fear. A student hijacking a commencement ceremony is not exactly a new practice. Last year there was a spate of such protests, including at Duke, where students walked out of a speech by Jerry Seinfeld over his views on Israel. But NYU's response in this case was particularly harsh; the university made a point of calling out Rozos for his 'personal and one-sided political views' and disciplining him in a way that is sure to chill even the most anodyne of pro-Palestinian activism. That the incidents at NYU and Claremont McKenna are both related to Gaza makes sense. Free speech is easy to condone when it involves issues of at least broad general agreement. But the question of how to talk about Israel's actions, Hamas's actions, the October 7 attacks, and the shockingly large number of Palestinian deaths that followed yields no easy answers. It is precisely on such difficult topics that a defense of free speech breaks down. Take Rushdie's comments. I don't think most of the protests on college campuses are in support of Hamas (and many students, I'd venture to guess, understand neither the group's ideology nor the complexity of Palestinian politics); they just want the killing they are seeing on TikTok to stop. And Rushdie cares about this killing too; he just doesn't get why the students aren't doing more to disassociate themselves from a group opposed to their progressive ideals. For their part, the students don't see why this is so important, at least not in the way someone like Rushdie, who was the subject of an Iranian fatwa calling for his death (which nearly succeeded), would. [Yair Rosenberg: Trump's Jewish cover story] This mess of misunderstanding and miscommunication has been fueled by the words and actions of the Trump administration. By characterizing practically all pro-Palestinian sentiment as a form of anti-Semitism, Trump has given others permission to declare that even the most basic expressions of humanitarian concern fall outside the bounds of free speech. And this has only encouraged those who do care about what is happening in Gaza to respond, as the Claremont McKenna students did, by enforcing their own borders, declaring certain ideas—and words—beyond the pale. The result is a culture in which people come to believe that they have no good reason to express themselves outside a narrow range of topics. The conversation around Israel and Palestine has been impoverished by this spiral. Positions have calcified and made it nearly impossible to talk about what is happening and why. Do you believe a genocide is taking place or don't you? Answer either way and someone will challenge your right to speak. Free speech is supposed to break through this kind of categorical thinking. It's also the force that ensures openness and helps prevent a culture from going stagnant. Without the jostling of ideas, a society is doomed to chase its tail, fighting over what freedom of speech actually means, all the while closing down opportunities for actual speaking. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Time for a Refresher on What ‘Free Speech' Means
Free speech is forever a matter of perspective. Unless you are an absolutist—and very few true absolutists exist—everyone draws their red lines somewhere, whether it's at racist epithets or yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater when nothing is actually burning. But the concept becomes completely meaningless unless it allows for the hearing of ideas that one group or another is bound to find abhorrent. Salman Rushdie, the author who was nearly murdered three years ago because of a novel he wrote, once articulated what he thought supporting free speech meant: 'The defense of free expression begins at the point at which somebody says something you don't like.' Rushdie called this view 'old-fashioned,' and, in 2025, it might very well be: Just last week, he was pressured to cancel an appearance because of something he said that a group of students did not like. In an interview with a German podcaster a year ago, Rushdie expressed surprise that young people on college campuses protesting on behalf of Palestinians were not being more circumspect about the fundamentalism and murderousness of Hamas, who started the current Gaza war. 'I feel that there's not a lot of deep thought happening,' he said about the demonstrations. 'There's an emotional reaction to the death in Gaza, and that's absolutely right. But when it slides over towards anti-Semitism and sometimes to actual support of Hamas, then it's very problematic.' This past weekend, Rushdie was supposed to be the keynote speaker at Claremont McKenna College's commencement ceremony. The school's Muslim student association loudly protested his being 'platformed,' and they were backed up by the Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. On Wednesday, presumably because of this pressure, Rushdie pulled out. At the news, the exultant head of the Muslim student association responded, 'I'm surprised, relieved and happy.' On that podcast last year, Rushdie, who had lived for decades in hiding from the forces of extremism, was trying to offer a warning based on this experience, to make sure the protests avoided supporting 'a fascist terrorist group'—an organization that spares no thought for free expression. I'd like to give the students the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn't see the irony in choosing to respond by seeking to foreclose his speech. That these young people seem to have a mixed-up sense of free speech is not surprising; their elders are not doing much better. The Trump administration has sought to deport legal residents over their free speech. And this government intimidation has reached such a point that universities now seem to be engaging in what the historian Timothy Snyder has called 'anticipatory obedience.' In another news story from commencement season, a student named Logan Rozos, who was graduating from NYU's Gallatin School, took his opportunity at the mic to denounce 'the atrocities currently happening in Palestine' and 'complicity in this genocide.' NYU responded with a fury redolent of an X post from White House Communications Director Steven Cheung. 'He lied about the speech he was going to deliver and violated the commitment he made to comply with our rules,' a university spokesperson said about Rozos. NYU apologized to the audience who 'was subjected to these remarks' and said that Rozos would not be receiving his diploma. I find it impossible to read this as anything other than NYU, already under investigation by the administration for its DEI practices, overreacting out of fear. A student hijacking a commencement ceremony is not exactly a new practice. Last year there was a spate of such protests, including at Duke, where students walked out of a speech by Jerry Seinfeld over his views on Israel. But NYU's response in this case was particularly harsh; the university made a point of calling out Rozos for his 'personal and one-sided political views' and disciplining him in a way that is sure to chill even the most anodyne of pro-Palestinian activism. That the incidents at NYU and Claremont McKenna are both related to Gaza makes sense. Free speech is easy to condone when it involves issues of at least broad general agreement. But the question of how to talk about Israel's actions, Hamas's actions, the October 7 attacks, and the shockingly large number of Palestinian deaths that followed yields no easy answers. It is precisely on such difficult topics that a defense of free speech breaks down. Take Rushdie's comments. I don't think most of the protests on college campuses are in support of Hamas (and many students, I'd venture to guess, understand neither the group's ideology nor the complexity of Palestinian politics); they just want the killing they are seeing on TikTok to stop. And Rushdie cares about this killing too; he just doesn't get why the students aren't doing more to disassociate themselves from a group opposed to their progressive ideals. For their part, the students don't see why this is so important, at least not in the way someone like Rushdie, who was the subject of an Iranian fatwa calling for his death (which nearly succeeded), would. Yair Rosenberg: Trump's Jewish cover story This mess of misunderstanding and miscommunication has been fueled by the words and actions of the Trump administration. By characterizing practically all pro-Palestinian sentiment as a form of anti-Semitism, Trump has given others permission to declare that even the most basic expressions of humanitarian concern fall outside the bounds of free speech. And this has only encouraged those who do care about what is happening in Gaza to respond, as the Claremont McKenna students did, by enforcing their own borders, declaring certain ideas—and words—beyond the pale. The result is a culture in which people come to believe that they have no good reason to express themselves outside a narrow range of topics. The conversation around Israel and Palestine has been impoverished by this spiral. Positions have calcified and made it nearly impossible to talk about what is happening and why. Do you believe a genocide is taking place or don't you? Answer either way and someone will challenge your right to speak. Free speech is supposed to break through this kind of categorical thinking. It's also the force that ensures openness and helps prevent a culture from going stagnant. Without the jostling of ideas, a society is doomed to chase its tail, fighting over what freedom of speech actually means, all the while closing down opportunities for actual speaking.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
Salman Rushdie Scared Away From College Speech After Uproar
Renowned novelist Sir Salman Rushdie has backed out of a college commencement speech at the eleventh hour amid intensifying backlash over 'troubling statements.' Claremont McKenna College President Hiram Chodish wrote in a campus-wide email Tuesday that Rushdie, 77, had decided to withdraw as graduation keynote speaker for its May 17 ceremony, the Daily Bulletin reported. 'This decision was his alone and completely beyond our control,' Chodosh wrote. 'We remain steadfast in our commitment to Sir Salman's visit to CMC and have extended an open invitation to him to speak on our campus in the future.' The cancellation came as student and local Muslim advocacy groups called the author's presence 'disrespectful' after he said pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses were akin to supporting 'a fascist terrorist group,' The Guardian reported last year. 'I'm surprised, relieved and happy,' Claremont Colleges Muslim Students Association president Kumail Afshar said about Rushdie backing out of the event. Rushdie, an Indian-born British and American atheist, has been forced into hiding for years amid immense outrage over his 1988 fiction novel The Satanic Verses, in which he suggests Islam's Prophet Muhammad's may have entertained polytheism. Iran's former spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa against Rushdie in response, with a $3 million reward for his life. Dozens have been killed in connection with protests over the book, and the book's Japanese translator was killed, BBC reported. Then in 2022, Rushdie was blinded in one eye after being stabbed over 12 times while on stage during a talk at Chautauqua Institution in New York. His attacker, Hadi Matar, was found guilty of attempted murder in the second degree and will be sentenced this week, The Guardian reported. Rushdie's 2024 autobiographical memoir, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, details the near-death experience and his resulting injuries. In the aftermath of the attack, Rushdie has been selective about where he speaks, frequently canceling appearances amid ongoing death threats. Leading up to the commencement, the Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations had called on Claremont McKenna College to address its students' concerns over Rushdie's 'troubling statements about Islam and Palestine.' 'CMC cannot claim to value diversity and inclusion while dismissing the voices of its students,' they wrote in a statement. 'We strongly urge CMC leadership to address the sincere concerns raised by the MSA about the decision to host Salman Rushdie, engage with them in good faith, and ensure that the campus remains an environment where students feel heard, respected, and valued.'
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Yahoo
Salman Rushdie pulls out as commencement speaker at California college over protest threats
Novelist Salman Rushdie backed out of delivering a commencement speech at a California college just days before the graduation, following protests by some students on campus. The celebrated British-Indian author, whose novel The Satanic Verses has long triggered controversy and even death threats, backed out of delivering a May 17 commencement speech at Claremont McKenna College earlier this week, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. News that Rushdie, 77, would no longer deliver the address was shared across the campus in an email from Claremont McKenna President Hiram Chodosh. 'I write with news that Sir Salman Rushdie notified us yesterday of his decision to withdraw as our keynote commencement speaker,' he wrote. 'This decision was his alone and completely beyond our control,' Chodosh added. 'We remain steadfast in our commitment to Sir Salman's visit to CMC and have extended an open invitation to him to speak on our campus in the future.' Claremont McKenna's Muslim Student Association had criticized the college's choice of Rushdie in a May 2 statement, calling it 'disrespectful' and out of line with the college's commitment to inclusion. Rushdie's famous 1988 novel has triggered controversy since it was published for its depiction of the Prophet Muhammad. One year after the novel's publication, Iran's spiritual leader at the time, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa on the author — prompting him to spend years in hiding. The author has also made headlines in recent years after he was stabbed 15 times on stage while preparing to deliver a lecture in western New York. The horrifying incident caused him to lose sight in one eye, his agent said. His attacker, Hadi Matar, was convicted in February of trying to kill the Booker Prize-winning novelist. Matar is set to be sentenced on May 16, according to The Guardian. Students upset with Rushdie's upcoming address said they protested, sending emails to administrators and speaking to news outlets to make their stance known, co-president of the group, Kumail Afshar, told the Los Angeles Daily News. The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations also called on the college to address students' concerns, noting in a statement that the author 'previously made troubling statements about Muslims and Palestine.' Rushdie did not appear to address the criticism when withdrawing as the commencement speaker. Dr. Richard Heinzl, founder of Doctors Without Borders Canada, will now deliver Saturday's keynote address, according to Chodosh's letter.
