The New Chill on Campus

From FrontPage magazine:

When Brigitte Gabriel recently gave a speech at Memphis University, she was confronted with a familiar sight: an audience so hostile to her message that it had come not to debate but to silence her.

A passionate and powerful speaker who had witnessed Palestinian terrorism and experienced anti-Jewish and anti-Christian propaganda in her native Lebanon, Gabriel had been invited to speak at the Tennessee campus by religious studies professor David Patterson. But the day before Gabriel's speech, Patterson began receiving threatening e-mails.
“Do you honestly think the scheduled lecture will serve any useful purpose other than inflaming the Muslims, insulting them and spilling poison in the community?” one message asked. Another charged that inviting Gabriel to speak was “worse than hosting of the Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.” Still another described her as among “the true enemies of Islam.”

The menacing emails proved prescient. When Gabriel and Patterson arrived in the campus auditorium 15 minutes before her scheduled presentation, several rows of seats in the front of the room were already occupied by men and women dressed in distinctive Muslim clothing. Before Gabriel was introduced, a Muslim man who has been a long-term graduate student at the university strode to the front of the room and announced: “We have been told that the speaker will only accept questions written on cards. Everyone who believes this is an un-democratic lecture, raise your hands.” The Muslims in the audience shouted their agreement.

Undaunted, Gabriel went to the front of the room and announced that the lecture belonged to her and that those who did not see it this way were welcome to leave. Two campus police officers stood on either side of her. They also called for backup. By the time order was restored and Gabriel began her speech, 10 police officers were posted in the room. Patterson implored the audience to give her a chance to be heard.

After her speech, she answered every question submitted — questions she described as “Palestinian talking points” — before the Muslim audience members swarmed onto the stage and surrounded her, yelling angrily. Finally, police officers grabbed her and hustled her out a side door. Someone else had to retrieve her coat and suitcase while she waited in a police car to be driven to the hotel where, for security reasons, she was registered under another name. Only after she had locked her door and drawn the curtains, did Gabriel allow herself to tremble.

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