If you're really that curious, it's not too difficult to do a Google search to find the Danish cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Muhammad that have caused so much uproar in the past few months. Not content with that, the NYU Objectivist Club, during a panel discussion on the cartoons last night, planned on having the 12 cartoons on display.
While news of this understandably upset Muslim groups on campus, with some level of compromise, the event could have been an enlightening and helpful discussion on the cartoons and the root of the initial controversy. Instead, after an entire day of negotiations with NYU's administration, the group decided not to show them at all. In lieu of an educational and informative panel discussion, it turned into a tense and hostile airing of the speakers' indignation that ultimately contributed nothing.
Freedom of speech — as has been pointed out ad infinitum since the controversy began — extends to the freedom to insult and offend. At an Objectivists' event, they had the right to display whatever they want without bending to opponents.
The Islamic Center, however, offered a number of alternatives to simply not showing the cartoons, and it would have easily been possible to arrange to show them for a short time, so those who would be offended wouldn't have to look at them. Displaying the cartoons all night would have completely driven devout Muslims from the event, which would have narrowed the scope of the debate even further. And although, as one panelist mentioned, hate speech is certainly protected by the First Amendment, the hostility it engenders is anathema to a constructive discussion on the issue. Some of the panelists' more outrageous and offensive statements about Islam is testament to such a statement.
It seems unfortunate that, even with assistance from a third party, they were still unable to work out a mutually beneficial agreement that would have allowed for a more balanced debate. As a result, everyone lost out. It ended up dealing less with the actual issue at hand and more with the panelists' anger at having their toy taken away.
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