I recently had the honor of being invited to see Charlton Heston speak at
Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois during Conservative Week. It
should have been an honor for the entire student body, since Mr. Heston is
arguably one of the most famous alumni to have attended Northwestern.
Unfortunately, the ever- present intolerance of the liberal sector of this
institution reared its ugly head.
I became involved with the great people of Northwestern University almost
two years ago when I learned of the attempts by the Associated Student
Government to disband the Northwestern Chronicle. I felt this was entirely
hypocritical, since the supposed message touted by the political left is one
of acceptance and tolerance. Obviously this is just a facade, since all of
their actions contradicted their words. I had the opportunity to listen and
read about the ludicrous attempts by the Student Government to quell a
thought process contrary to their own, and frankly I was sickened.
I was always under the impression that the collegiate atmosphere was one
of free thought and exchange of ideas. For the most part this is true, with
the exception of conservative viewpoints. I became involved on a firsthand
basis when I contacted those involved with the Chronicle, the Student
Government, and the faculty. I wanted to find out if this was just another
story blown way out of proportion, or if this truly was an attempt to stifle
an opposing view. It turned out to be the latter.
I decided to join in the fight to keep free speech alive at Northwestern.
I wrote a series of columns, along with faxing the article to any radio
personality in the Chicagoland area who would read them. I received two
responses, one from staunch conservative radio host Tom Roeser, and the
second from the extremely liberal radio host Mike Malloy. Both work at WLS
radio AM 890, the largest AM radio station in the Midwest. It seemed highly
likely that there were abuses by the ASG when both radio hosts, whose
political philosophies are miles apart, agreed that the treatment of the Chron
icle was a great injustice.
When Mike Malloy, the liberal of the two hosts, invited me to come to the
studio to help plead the case for the Chronicle, I was able to get a
birds-eye view of the vitriolic attitudes of some liberals. They used the
typical catch words like Nazi, bigot, and hate-monger. Basically these catch
phrases applied to anyone who held a conservative viewpoint or who tried to
defend the Chronicle. The show scheduled an hour for this topic, but they
had to extend our time due to the volume of calls which were generated.
Thankfully, most of the calls were in support of the Chronicle and critical
of the actions of the ASG. I just wanted to give this brief synopsis so it
could be understood how I came to be in attendance the night of the Heston
speech.
The night of February 23rd, my wife and I were outside the auditorium
absorbing the beauty of the Northwestern campus and reveling in the prospect
of meeting Mr. Heston. We overheard several people make disparaging comments
about Heston's appearance that night, which is fine. Unlike some of the
people on campus, we feel that all are entitled to their own opinions. The
hour was approaching when we would finally meet Mr. Heston and we made our
way inside to the reception room. While waiting, we had the chance to speak
with Mike Hoes, who was very warm and gracious upon our first meeting. He
spoke about the obstacles which had been thrown in the path of planning this
occasion: petty things, such as the struggle to secure the reception room.
One would expect that such a man of stature as Charlton Heston would be
afforded all of the accommodations, but this was not to be. In fact, Mr.
Hoes explained that within a few hours of posting the announcements bearing
Heston's picture, almost two-thirds of them were destroyed or defaced. This
is not the action of an elite crop of college students, rather they were acts
of immature adolescents who don't have the capability of intellectually
dealing with a visit from a person holding a differing political stance from
their own.
I have to admit the evening went off almost without incident until Heston
began his speech. At that point, a young man in the rear of the auditorium
stood up in an attempt to disrupt the gathering, which ultimately resulted in
nothing more than a minor annoyance. What was truly frightening, as we
arrived home later that evening, we turned on the Channel 2 News and they
displayed two people who were arrested. The first looked like a scared
innocent kid; the other had a blank, almost David Berkowitz-like stare,
while seated in the police car. This young man was the epitome of all that
is deceitful with respect to the liberal mantra of open-mindedness. Several
people who disagreed with Heston's stances were still in attendance at the
speech. Individuals who were mature enough to listen politely then used the
Q & A after the speech to voice their opinions.
Overall, the evening is one that will remain with me for as long as I
live as a truly wonderful experience. I am still disturbed, however, at the
fact there is still talk about the need for acceptance of minority groups
such as African-Americans and gays, yet the one minority on campus which
remains an open, frequent and a socially accepted target for discrimination
is the young conservative.