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UCLA bans “Islamophobic” book from free speech event

Feb 16, 2017 3:49 pm By Robert Spencer

Ironically, this report appears in The Hill, which has previously shown itself ready to comply with pro-Sharia intimidation. The slightest critical word about Islam, or what is perceived to be the slightest critical word, is immediately denounced as “Islamophobic” and suppressed. If this phenomenon isn’t challenged and halted, all those who speak the truth about Islam and jihad will be silenced, and the jihad will advance unopposed and unimpeded.

“UCLA banned my book on Islam from a free speech event,” by Elan Journo, The Hill, February 11, 2017:

At UCLA Law School last week, a squad of student “thought police” tried to ban my book, Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: From George W. Bush to Barack Obama and Beyond. They don’t want you to know the book even exists, let alone what’s inside it. And the UCLA administration enabled them. This ominous episode underlines how students are learning to be contemptuous of intellectual freedom.

The story of what happened at UCLA is laced with ironies. On Feb. 1, the UCLA chapter of the Federalist Society and the Ayn Rand Institute co-sponsored a panel discussion at UCLA Law School on the vital importance of freedom of speech and the threats to it. My book shows how certain philosophic ideas undercut America’s response to the jihadist movement, including notably its attacks on freedom of speech.

Naturally, the book was displayed and offered for sale at a reception prior to the event, which featured Dave Rubin, the contrarian YouTube host; Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who published the now-infamous Mohammad cartoons in 2005 and author of The Tyranny of Silence; and Steve Simpson, editor of Defending Free Speech (these two books were also displayed).

During the reception, however, a group of UCLA students assembled in front of the book table and objected to mine. Why? Had they read the book, weighed the evidence, and found it lacking? Had they formed a considered evaluation of the book’s argument?

No: They felt the book was “offensive” and “insulting.” They had “issues” with the views that I and my co-author, Onkar Ghate, put forward. Our views, it seems, were “Islamophobic.” Based on what? Apparently, for some of them, it was the book’s title.

Yet another irony here is that in the book we disentangle the notion of “Islamophobia.” We show that it’s an illegitimate term, one that clouds thinking, because it mashes together at least two fundamentally different things. The term blends, on the one hand, serious analysis and critique of the ideas of Islamic totalitarianism, the cause animating the jihadists, which is vitally important (and the purpose of my book); and, on the other hand, racist and tribalist bigotry against people who espouse the religion of Islam. Obviously, racism and bigotry have no place in a civilized society.

Moreover, the book makes clear that while all jihadists are self-identified Muslims, it is blatantly false that all Muslims are jihadists. (It should go without saying, though sadly it must be said, that countless Muslims are law abiding, peaceful, productive Americans.) Ignorant of the book’s full scope and substance, the students felt it had no place on campus.

The students demanded that my book be removed from display. My colleagues who manned the display table declined to remove the book.

So the students enforced their own brand of thought control. They turned their backs to the table, forming a blockade around it, so no one could see or buy the books. Then they started aggressively leaning back on the table, pushing against the book displays. By blocking access to the book, they were essentially trying to ban it.

At this point, you might hope the UCLA administration would step in to re-assert the principle of intellectual freedom that is so crucial to education, a free society, and the advancement of human knowledge. Finally a rep from UCLA did step in–to abet the student protestors. My book was “inflammatory.” It had to go.

Thus: at a panel about freedom of speech and growing threats to it – not least from Islamists – UCLA students and school administrators tried to ban a book that highlights the importance of free speech, the persistent failure to confront Islamic totalitarianism, and that movement’s global assaults on free speech….

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Filed Under: academia, Featured, free speech Tagged With: Elan Journo, UCLA Law School


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Comments

  1. David Scoltock says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 3:55 pm

    Americans like free speech, till someone says or does something they don’t like.

    • Steve K says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 3:57 pm

      Not Americans. Leftists. And they are doing it world wide.

      • gandolph says

        Feb 17, 2017 at 5:07 am

        your right Steve…but let’s call them as they really are “Communists”…

    • Custos Custodum says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 4:17 pm

      Muhammad “Scoltock” is yet another tedious provocateur.

      • David Scoltock says

        Feb 16, 2017 at 4:19 pm

        Free speech is a pain when someone doesn’t agree with you watcher of watchmen

    • Phil Copson says

      Feb 18, 2017 at 7:36 am

      If you’ve nothing sensible to say – please stop posting.

      When Robert Spencer was making a serious point comparing the dangerous complacency and even the promotion of Islamic supremacism on the part of too many today in politics, education – (or what passes for it….) – and the media today, compared to the realistic contemporary views of the rise of Nazism, what did we get from you ? A lot of silly babble about Avro Lancasters and who won the war !

      Your time would be better spent tackling your MP about unrestricted immigration, or asking your Chief Constable if they are actually bothering to check what is being preached in your local mosques, asking feminist groups why they are betraying women in Muslim countries, or campaigning to get UKIP elected in Stoke this Thursday – which will do more than anything to put a shot across the bows of the establishment and make them think seriously about border control – than in making inane and offensive remarks about the entire population of the USA.

      Or – if you’re not up to doing anything useful with your life – how about you leave JW and join a teenage aero-modellers club ?

  2. Steve K says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 3:55 pm

    Nazis in Germany burned books. Leftists in America ban speech. Slightly different method., Same goal..

    • David Scoltock says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 3:55 pm

      The right in America enjoy a spot of book burning too.

      • Steve K says

        Feb 16, 2017 at 4:01 pm

        There’s no comparison. During the 80s the right did some antipornography stuff. but it is nothing anywhere near what the left is doing now. The left is completely destorying free poilitical speech. At this rate, It won’t be long before today’s democracies become leftists totalitarian dictatiorships

        The things the left does on college campuses are the things they want to do everywhere. And if they are not stopped, they will.

        • David Scoltock says

          Feb 16, 2017 at 4:06 pm

          I’ not arguing your point. I despise this far left trend to “no platform” anyone they do not like and putting “trigger” warnings on stuff that may offend.

          History is offensive, what our nations have done in the past, American genocide against the natives, British colonial atrocities are facts that need to be told so we don’t bloody do it again.

          We won’t stop another holocaust by pretending it didn’t happen. I’m not a fan of Spencer and I despise many of his fanatical acolytes who advocate rape and murder on this blog but he makes some good points.

        • common sense says

          Feb 16, 2017 at 4:40 pm

          The 3rd Reich marked Jewish businesses, sent their brown shirts into the streets to quash opposing views and beat people, planted false flags, eventually controlled the German press, took guns away, burned books and ultimately, finally silenced everyone.

          The left tries to dissuade people from buying Ivanka Trump products, LL bean, make BHO into a Saint and portray every pretroleum producer in the US as white supremacists. The leftist thugs create anarchy and riot in our streets, assualt Trump supporters and ban free speech. MSM are in a fever pitched Hitler like histeria to slander Trump and his entire team all while our soldiers fight ISIS and every other Islamic group. These students might as well have burned those books right then and there while waving a swastika flag. Then there is the gun control issue where you have gun free zones you have more people killing each other while they howl about racism and lack of rights which they are themselves guilty of(street dialect racists) and already have (equal rights).
          That’s the quick synopsis- Who are the fascists? Preaching to the choir here.

        • common sense says

          Feb 16, 2017 at 4:54 pm

          To add to your point Steve K burning pornography is not destroying education, American lives or the right to speak out. It is fact in unison with the 1A to criticize that which might disgust you. Kind of like my Obama/ISIS/Hillary dart board.

      • maghan says

        Feb 17, 2017 at 3:22 am

        The point is that history seems to reflect on the human temperament than anything else. There was the enslavement of the Native Americans for 100 years before Spanish priest, Bartolomo de las Casas implored the Spanish monarch and Pope to replace the NAs with Africans. In North America the population of NAs is estimated to range from 5 million to 15 million. Their numbers now are some 7 million. The U.S. is so expansive and the fact that there were 13 colonies initially makes the idea that there people rampaging across the U.S. killing NAs is somewhat problematic.

        Note that throughout the Americas, the NAs were conquered and mostly Spanish colonies set up–the Portuguese, British and French setting up colonies too.

        Again, the issue is history. What to make of it in terms of human behavior. Historian, Will Durant claims that the Islamic invasions of the Asian sub-continent killed 80 million people. There are also claims that the Islamic invasions of West Asia, North Africa, and parts of Europe killed thousands and erased cultures and religions. Yet Muslims and their supporters in the West seem not to be conflicted over the history of Arab military and cultural imperialism.

        Hence books written on just this topic get attacked as Islamophobic and fit to be banned.

  3. no_one says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 3:57 pm

    Obviously UCLA is not a good school if it bans the freedom of speech. Complete morons.

    • Blangwort says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 5:24 pm

      The school itself didn’t ban the books. The students did. The school lacks the intestinal fortitude to tell these “students” that this behavior is not in keeping with solid academic tradition.

      After all, if a school bans someone from reading the likes of Das Kapital and Mein Kampf, it dooms society to repeat those mistakes. Likewise with the Koran and with whatever criticism of Islam that someone writes.

      I don’t care who gets offended. There is no right to walk through life without offense. In fact, I’m offended that these idiots are using this excuse to get their way.

      • no_one says

        Feb 16, 2017 at 7:13 pm

        it is scary how students are brainwashed. I wouldn’t like my child to be in contact with these. I don’t know if there are any schools left that are not pro-islam and anti-Israel.

        • Carolyne says

          Feb 17, 2017 at 11:05 am

          I was going to say a convent in Switzerland, but with Pope Francis…………………….

  4. Westman says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:22 pm

    If Socrates was on that campus they would toss him out as well. He asked questions about held attitudes and whittled them down by asking for evidence until they either sat upon a bedrock of evidence or were simply false.

    Apparently UCLA has its own version of the Hemlock Society to poison truth tellers for the same reason the city fathers killed Socrates: The truth might make cherished false beliefs and themselves appear questionable to the youth.

  5. Michael Miller says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:22 pm

    They should ban the Quran.

    • Milo says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 4:47 pm

      Banning the quran would allow the believers of Islam to say what they wish. It’s bad enough that it’s readily available and the leftist refuse to actually read it; if they did, they’d find they are backing an evil ideology, not a religion of peace. Years ago, I purchased several editions of the quran and the hadith in order to educate myself; to say the least, I was horrified. But what I find even more horrific are the responses by leftist white Americans, who would argue over what i found without bothering to ever pick up and read a copy for themselves. They would only parrot the hate reteric of Islamist, who know better but hide under a vail of lies.

  6. davej says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:29 pm

    At a “free speech event” they endorse the banning of a book? A book that decries the totalitarian quashing of free speech – how ironic (and terrifying). UCLA should be ashamed of themselves.

    Calling the disgust with terror attacks and opposition to a violent invasion a “phobia” is a chilling piece of Orwellian logic.

  7. JayT says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:42 pm

    And can anyone explain why then the UCLA online bookstore carries Defeating Jihad by Sebastian Gorka and other similar anti-Islamic books? Yes, it seems their faculty is too dumb to actually first check if they’ve allowed the same kind of book already that they preach is too inflamatory to allow to be attached to their name.

    For any UCLA students or faculty that may read this: You are not a privately funded school like USC, so how about you ask us taxpayers before you decide to ban anyone’s book on your taxpayer funded campus?

  8. common sense says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:44 pm

    Soon we’ll need our quarterly dosage of Islamophobin gum. There is a new product that pro sharia Muslims might want to try- VICTIMA
    https://youtu.be/hBJ1hVxI5q0

  9. billybob says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:45 pm

    EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT!
    We have a double header for you today…
    On page 1, “Man bites dog”
    and on page 2 “Book banned at freedom of speech event”

  10. Angemon says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:59 pm

    At this point, you might hope the UCLA administration would step in to re-assert the principle of intellectual freedom that is so crucial to education, a free society, and the advancement of human knowledge. Finally a rep from UCLA did step in–to abet the student protestors.

    UCLA has a history of harbouring leftard agitators.

  11. MacUalraig says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 5:02 pm

    Seems like the Quran itself would be banned also, yes?

    All that Islamaphobic stuff in there.

  12. Alec Rawls says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 5:07 pm

    As a comeback to “Islamophobic” I suggest “Islamotruthic.” (Ditto phobia/truthia.) The only phobia involved is on the part of those who cry Islamophobia. They are “truthophobic.”

    • Edgar Allen says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 6:20 pm

      The words you are looking for already exist. Veritophobia, Veritophobic. We need to use them more often.

      • Peter Hammer says

        Feb 17, 2017 at 9:46 am

        Pamela Geller likes the term Islamorealism.

  13. somehistory says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 5:26 pm

    Chip, chip, chip and sometimes, like this one at UCLA, in big chunks. With a buzz saw.

  14. Lucretius says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 6:17 pm

    “Obviously, racism and bigotry have no place in a civilized society.”

    Where they have no place are legal codes (such as the Black Codes were) and their enforcement. But one will not have a civilized society, but rather a totalitarian one, if one attempts to eliminate them from all voluntary association and interchange and from every human heart. It would be the utopian destruction of a civilized or even tolerable society to legislate equal indiscriminating love, as the “love trumps hate” crowd demands.

  15. Edgar Allen says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 6:24 pm

    THIS IS YET ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF VERITOPHOBIA, OR FEAR OF THE TRUTH.

    WE NEED TO POPULARIZE THIS WORD, TO MAKE IT PART OF THE MEDIA’S DAILY LINGO, LIKE ‘FAKE NEWS’ HAS BECOME COMMONPLACE.

    MUSLIM APOLOGIST SAYS: THIS IS ISLAMOPHOBIC.

    WE ANSWER: NO, YOU ARE AFRAID OF THE TRUTH, YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH, YOU SUFFER FROM VERITOPHOBIA.

    • jihad3tracker says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 7:42 pm

      HELLO EDGAR — Yes, agreed, “VERITOPHOBIA” is an excellent pushback word against “Islamophobia”.

  16. Kenny says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 6:28 pm

    Take the People vs Mohammed… Discuss that instead!!
    And TAKE YOUR BIBLE!!

  17. Davegreybeard says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 8:07 pm

    @David Scoltock
    “I’m not a fan of Spencer and I despise many of his fanatical acolytes who advocate rape and murder on this blog but he makes some good points.”

    I despise people like you, David, who lie and slander those who are heroically battling the forces of evil to bring truth to a world that is desperate need of it.

    There are no “many fanatical acolytes advocating rape and murder on this blog.” It is a blatant lie and you know it.

    To the extent that you engage in such vile calumny, YOU become the enemy.

    • Keys says

      Feb 16, 2017 at 11:20 pm

      Thank you, Davegreybeard, for confronting the lies of this liar, David Scoltock.

  18. mortimer says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    How do they know what is ‘Islamophobic’ if they have no definition of the word and if they word is not a legal category?

    If ‘Islamophobia’ is not legal, how can they defend the use of this word in court? They can’t. Someone should sue them.

    • Carolyne says

      Feb 17, 2017 at 11:18 am

      I think the word “Islamophobia” was coined by that ridiculous person Phil Donohue. He tried to make a comeback a few years ago, but nobody wanted him back.

  19. mortimer says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 9:04 pm

    Imagine an American law school banning the freedom of speech. This is a travesty! Where are the law teachers speaking out for FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

    • Carolyne says

      Feb 17, 2017 at 11:21 am

      Abolishing the First Amendment is a goal of the left, and one of Hillary Clinton’s goals. She attended a meeting on that very subject, held by the UN in Istanbul when she was SOS. Her plan was to pack the Supreme Court with her leftist female friends and she would then control the Constitution and its provisions. If she were elected President. Ah, but there’s the rub.

  20. Leom says

    Feb 16, 2017 at 9:59 pm

    Stop all federal funding to UCLA! Until free speech is restored…Viva Spencer!

  21. SoCalMike says

    Feb 17, 2017 at 12:43 am

    Shutting up and shouting down is what the fascist Left does when they aren’t busy lying and smearing and accusing everyone else of their own crimes, sins and revolting thoughts and busy-body control-freak impulses.

    • Kay says

      Feb 17, 2017 at 9:34 am

      Yes– through riots loudly or “kindly” by discounting what people say as “fear.”

  22. Irene Brekelmans says

    Feb 17, 2017 at 3:52 am

    I am from Europe and always looked up to the US and its people and their scholing etc. and their freedom, but lately I have been so disappointed what is happening in the USA, by the same token, I am very disappointed in Europe too.
    It feels, like I do not know any more who and what people are any more, may be they were always like this, and you just have to wait for a major shift and then you start to remember again. 2nd world war and now, what happens with the UCLA students, crazy, what a freedom, but it is all happening and nobody seems to be able to talk some sense into people. We have to stay calm and pray for the best. At least Trump is
    doing something, no nonsense and as soon he was in office, he started things he promised to do, good or bad, but refreshing, not the normal mumbo jumbo promises and no deeds, but we will see how this all will play out, here in Europe too. These are very strange and strenuous times. Take care

  23. Fatts says

    Feb 17, 2017 at 8:47 am

    This is UCLA doing their best to enforce sharia, specifically, blasphemy laws.

  24. 762x51FMJ says

    Feb 17, 2017 at 9:10 am

    Islam is always one generation away from extinction.
    But it is perpetuated by Ignorance, Hate, and Fear.

    Ignorance is defined as a media who deliberately fails to report or covers up Islamic actions.
    Hate is a learned behavior that begins with children in Madrassa.
    and extends to the Mosque, Where attendees are reminded
    “We know where your family lives and the penalty for apostasy is death”

    Islam is the largest family feud over an inheritance the world has known. Islam demands
    tolerance and respect that will not extend to others. Islam is a death cult disguised as a religion..
    ..

  25. DRHazard says

    Feb 17, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    So apparently, if you’re a leftst, you CAN judge a book by it’s cover. This judgement will automatically cause a reflexive reaction in the leftists brain. If the judgement is along the lines of “I don’t like it” or “I disagree with it” or “I am superior to that and am going to prove it”, etc. then they will immediately be filled with a false sense of purpose and act upon it. Critical thinking is an obstacle to this process and is therefore completely avoided.

    Also, they do not understand the word “free” when used along with the word “speech”. Free to them means, I live in my parents house rent free, or, college should be free.

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