To the Editor:
Friday's protest brought forth some great ideas. Especially heartfelt were the requests that limits be placed on the number of hours student-employees work and the inhibiting price of off-campus programs and certain P.E. courses for financially challenged students.
However, amid these issues came the cry "Fuck free speech" in response to comments by staff of The Dartmouth Review who said that the price of free speech includes being exposed to opinions popularly perceived as bigoted. The chant blasting free speech was followed by applause, ironically, by the same protesters who were practicing free speech as they condemned it.
Let us imagine, though, that the government did want to limit free speech. With a conservative in the White House and Congress, one would think that advocates of traditionally liberal causes such as diversity would viciously embrace free speech. Also, the protesters had no reason to blast free speech or The Dartmouth Review. If I were any one of the enthusiastic leaders in front of Parkhurst, I would have been hoping The Review called back the Confederacy. For the more extreme, unpopular ideas The Review and conservatives make, the more people will be scared away from their ideologies.
I would like to thank the protest's planners for their work and the protesters of the protest for serving as a bulls-eye.
