Franklin & Marshall College students protested a speech by Danish free speech advocate and editor Flemming Rose—who green-lit publication of the controversial 2005 cartoon depicting Islamic prophet Mohammed. The student protesters claimed Rose’s presence on campus made them “fear for [their] safety.”
Rose was the editor of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published the cartoons that sparked riots in several cities and became the subject of intense debate regarding the future of free speech.
Writing in a campus newspaper, Matthew Hoffman, the Jewish history professor who invited Rose to speak on March 2, says student protesters asked him:
“‘Why’? Why did you bring someone to campus who contributes to our ever-increasing feelings of vulnerability, marginalization, and fear for our safety? Why couldn’t you have chosen anybody else to discuss the issue of free speech, someone whose presence would not make us feel even more under siege and unwelcome?”
According to The College Fix, several dozen protesters showed up at Rose’s March 2 talk to voice their outrage. Hoffman told the newspaper that during the protest, one student even held a phone of the offensive caricature, depicting the religious figure with a bomb in his turban.
“Why show the cartoon if you find it so offensive?,” he asked.
Hoffman attempted to defuse the situation by speaking directly to the protesters prior to Rose’s speech.
“Some maintained that he shouldn’t have been invited, while others disagreed, and some liked part of what he had to say,” Hoffman explained. “One protester contacted me directly, apologizing for his role in the protest, realizing that the protesters were themselves exercising their free speech, but maintaining that it was a bad idea to invite him in the first place.”
Even though the speech’s Q&A portion was conducted in a hostile environment, Rose says that there were no interruptions and that it was “quite civilized, but tense—and that’s the way to manage disagreements.”
“It’s fine to be upset, but it shouldn’t prevent me from talking,” Rose told the Fix. “I think a college has a special obligation to a create an atmosphere where students from time to time are exposed to points of view that they find disturbing and offensive.”
“A college should challenge echo chambers and group thinking,” he said.
Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.
