Ad shows majority view

"I'm getting letters from journalists all over the country telling me I'll never get a job in journalism again," admitted Daniel Hernandez, the editor of Berkeley's campus newspaper the Daily Cal, after he decided to apologize for placing David Horowitz's ad. Yet this is exactly what members of "a group of graduate students representing MEA and BGSA" demanded the IDS editors do Sunday night -- apologize for and thus destroy any and all journalistic integrity and obligation they have. The national news media does not concur with Hernandez's actions.\nThanks to an increasingly unpopular section of the Bill of Rights called the First Amendment, college newspaper editors all over the nation are having to deal with this heated issue. It's probably a decision some of the editors don't want to make. To print or not to print, that is the question.\nYet apologizing for a failure to censor Horowitz's reasoned arguments would violate their professional integrity and journalistic duty. There is nothing wrong with publishing an ad that has a political point of view as long as the IDS makes its nature abundantly clear. And they did, as it states across the top of the page, "THIS IS A PAID ADVERTISEMENT."\nA Time poll of about 30,000 respondents showed 75 percent were opposed to reparations for slavery. So the fact is, the vast majority of Americans believe reparations for slavery are wrong. Silencing the clear majority's point of view by not running the ad makes absolutely no sense.\nUnlike Holocaust deniers, Horowitz is not denying slavery took place or denying that it was horrible; he is simply debating whether reparations are justified. Even during the McCarthy era, Communists could purchase ad space in college newspapers.\nShould the IDS have notified the black community about the ad? No. Why? For the same reason they didn't contact the Bush administration when an ad was purchased condemning its environmental policies, and for the same reason the pro-life community isn't notified every time a pro-abortion ad is run in the IDS. The right to free speech has no warning bells -- sometimes people might just say something unexpected. Those who demand "diversity" on IU's campus appear not to accept that principle when it comes to expression or beliefs.\nLaurence H. Tribe, a Harvard Constitutional law professor who is no friend of Republicans and no stranger to the U.S. Supreme Court (he argued Gore's recount case), stated, "I think it is a very basic First Amendment principle: Any newspaper has very broad editorial discretion whether to print or not to print or to retract an ad." Political correctness has festered too long on campus, to the point even other liberals disagree.\nIf you can't have an honest disagreement and discussion at a university, then where? It is my hope any and all responses will address the merits of the ad, not simply play the race card -- this is too important of a subject to only respond with "racist." Rebut his arguments. The way to "fight" speech is not a lack of speech, rather more speech. Some people would prefer this to be a non-debatable subject -- but the vast majority of Americans are of the side that many would like to see silenced. Well, tough. Was the ad provocative? Yes, but it was meant to be. Sadly, I believe some are confusing passionate dissent with racist views. They desire censorship over open debate. And that is why the IDS made the right decision. The editors had an obligation and positive responsibility to us, the student body.