Suppression for Thee, Free Speech for Me

Mitchell Langbert

I sent this letter to the editor of the faculty newspaper of the City University of New York, The Clarion.

The Clarion cites Ed Koch, The New York Times and the PSC’s leadership in calling for the resignation of Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld. All three are Democrats. In the pages of The Wall Street Journal, the nation's leading Middle East expert, Bernard Lewis, has exposed The New York Times’s reporting on the Arab Spring and Iran. The Times has mistranslated speakers and overtly lied in its coverage. Its editorial page is as important as Stormfront's.

The call for Trustee Wiesenfeld’s resignation is consistent with a totalitarian interpretation of “academic freedom” whose origin is in the 19th Century German Idealists' Lehrerfreiheit. Today, Lehrerfreiheit, which differs from most Americans’ interpretation of the word “freedom,” is seen in Democrats' one-sided claim that it applies to them but not to those who disagree with them, like Trustee Wiesenfeld. "Suppression for thee, free speech for me," is the Democrats' totalitarian Clarion-call.

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