Editor, Ceres Courier,

I denounce the unsettling attempt by campus leftists at UCLA to shut down a speech by James Percival, the Department of Homeland Security’s general counsel. The unseemly events were triggered by the inability and unwillingness of a select portion of the student body to accept, embrace, and tolerate the expression of ideas contrary to their own.

A university is a place where minds should be opened, not closed; where new and contrary ideas should be embraced, not debased; where perspectives should be broadened, not narrowed; where biases should be challenged, not confirmed. It would appear that many of our universities are failing at this critically important role.

Without freedom of expression, all other freedoms fail. We are right to denounce the incident at UCLA and similar ones that have occurred at other American universities. Such behavior is a dangerous assault on one of the very cornerstones of our democracy. Censorship of free speech doesn’t just diminish democracy and institutes of higher learning. It diminishes us all.

Michael J. DiStefano

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