ALL
The Anti-Intellectuality of Donald Trump: Why Ayn Rand Would Have Despised a President Trump
by Onkar Ghate | November 06, 2017
The Immigration Debate
by The Editors | April 17, 2017
Why Our Campuses Are Boiling over in Left-Wing Rage Instead of Discourse
by Steve Simpson | March 13, 2017
At Free-Speech Event, UCLA Tried to Ban My Book
by Elan Journo | February 11, 2017
One Small Step for Dictatorship: The Significance of Donald Trump’s Election
by Onkar Ghate | November 17, 2016
Ayn Rand at the Ford Hall Forum
by The Editors | June 18, 2015
Independence Day: What July 4 Really Means
by Tom Bowden | June 26, 2014
An Introduction to Objectivism
by Leonard Peikoff | 1995
Capitalism without Guilt
by Yaron Brook | January 21, 2013
How The Welfare State Stole Christmas
by Yaron Brook | December 23, 2012
A Liberal Ayn Rand?
by Onkar Ghate | November 02, 2012
Time to Read Ayn Rand?
by Keith Lockitch | October 19, 2012
Ayn Rand’s Appeal
by Onkar Ghate | August 21, 2012
Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: A Paean to American Liberty
by Don Watkins | August 17, 2012
Happy Birthday, Ayn Rand — Why Are You Still So Misunderstood?
by Don Watkins | February 02, 2012
How Did Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged Predict an America Spinning Out of Control?
by Onkar Ghate | October 31, 2011
Atlas Shrugged: With America on the Brink, Should You “Go Galt” and Strike?
by Onkar Ghate | April 29, 2011
The Radicalness of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
by Onkar Ghate | April 25, 2011
The Tea Party Will Fail — Unless it Fully Embraces Individualism as a Moral Ideal
by Tom Bowden | January 21, 2011
Let’s Take Back Columbus Day
by Tom Bowden | October 08, 2010
Atlas Shrugged’s Timeless Moral: Profit-Making Is Virtue, Not Vice
by Yaron Brook | July 20, 2010
Why is Ayn Rand Still Relevant: Atlas Shrugged and Today’s World
by Yaron Brook | August 10, 2009
Is Rand Relevant?
by Yaron Brook | March 14, 2009
After Ten Years, States Still Resist Assisted Suicide
by Tom Bowden | November 02, 2007
The Influence of Atlas Shrugged
by Yaron Brook | October 09, 2007
The Real Museum Looters
by Keith Lockitch | June 03, 2003
Ayn Rand's Ideas — An Introduction
by Onkar Ghate | June 02, 2003
Shame on Casey Martin
by Tom Bowden | January 31, 2001
The Joy of Football
by Tom Bowden | January 26, 2001
Whose Children Are They?
by Tom Bowden | January 05, 2000
Why Christmas Should Be More Commercial
by Leonard Peikoff | December 25, 1996
Cultural Update
by Ayn Rand | April 16, 1978
The Moral Factor
by Ayn Rand | April 11, 1976
Metaphysics in Marble
by Mary Ann Sures | February and March 1969
Of Living Death
by Ayn Rand | December 08, 1968
Our Cultural Value-Deprivation
by Ayn Rand | April 10, 1966
The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus
by Ayn Rand | April 18, 1965
Is Atlas Shrugging?
by Ayn Rand | April 19, 1964
Racism
by Ayn Rand | September 1963
Through Your Most Grievous Fault
by Ayn Rand | August 19, 1962
The “New Intellectual”
by Ayn Rand | May 15, 1961

MORE FROM THE BLOG:

Culture And Society in Voice for Reason
Culture & SocietyMore

At Free-Speech Event, UCLA Tried to Ban My Book

by Elan Journo | February 11, 2017

At UCLA Law School last week, a squad of student “thought police” tried to ban my book, Failing to Confront Islamic Totalitarianism: From George W. Bush to Barack Obama and Beyond. They don’t want you to know the book even exists, let alone what’s inside it. And the UCLA administration enabled them. This ominous episode underlines how students are learning to be contemptuous of intellectual freedom. 

The story of what happened at UCLA is laced with ironies. On February 1, the UCLA chapter of the Federalist Society and the Ayn Rand Institute co-sponsored a panel discussion at UCLA Law School on the vital importance of freedom of speech and the threats to it. My book shows how certain philosophic ideas undercut America’s response to the jihadist movement, including notably its attacks on freedom of speech.

Naturally, the book was displayed and offered for sale at a reception prior to the event, which featured Dave Rubin, the contrarian YouTube host; Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who published the now-infamous Mohammad cartoons in 2005 and author of The Tyranny of Silence; and Steve Simpson, editor of Defending Free Speech (these two books were also displayed).

During the reception, however, a group of UCLA students assembled in front of the book table and objected to mine. Why? Had they read the book, weighed the evidence, and found it lacking? Had they formed a considered evaluation of the book’s argument? No: They felt the book was “offensive” and “insulting.” They had “issues” with the views that I and my co-author, Onkar Ghate, put forward. Our views, it seems, were “Islamophobic.” Based on what? Apparently, for some of them, it was the book’s title.

Yet another irony here is that in the book we disentangle the notion of “Islamophobia.” We show that it’s an illegitimate term, one that clouds thinking, because it mashes together at least two fundamentally different things. The term blends, on the one hand, serious analysis and critique of the ideas of Islamic totalitarianism, the cause animating the jihadists, which is vitally important (and the purpose of my book); and, on the other hand, racist and tribalist bigotry against people who espouse the religion of Islam. Obviously, racism and bigotry have no place in a civilized society.

Moreover, the book makes clear that while all jihadists are self-identified Muslims, it is blatantly false that all Muslims are jihadists. (It should go without saying, though sadly it must be said, that countless Muslims are law abiding, peaceful, productive Americans.) Ignorant of the book’s full scope and substance, the students felt it had no place on campus.

The students demanded that my book be removed from display. My colleagues who manned the display table declined to remove the book.

So the students enforced their own brand of thought control. They turned their backs to the table, forming a blockade around it, so no one could see or buy the books. Then they started aggressively leaning back on the table, pushing against the book displays. By blocking access to the book, they were essentially trying to ban it.

At this point, you might hope the UCLA administration would step in to re-assert the principle of intellectual freedom that is so crucial to education, a free society, and the advancement of human knowledge. Finally a rep from UCLA did step in–to abet the student protestors. My book was “inflammatory.” It had to go.

Thus: at a panel about freedom of speech and growing threats to it – not least from Islamists — UCLA students and school administrators tried to ban a book that highlights the importance of free speech, the persistent failure to confront Islamic totalitarianism, and that movement’s global assaults on free speech.

This shameful incident reflects a wider phenomenon on American campuses. At university, students should learn to think, to engage with different views, and thus to grow intellectually. But increasingly, students learn to put their feelings above facts. Some students demand to be protected from what they merely believe, without evidence, are uncongenial views. They demand that non-orthodox views be silenced. And such universities as UCLA willingly coddle and appease them.

The universities, observes Steve Simpson in Defending Free Speech, are a bellwether of the future of freedom of speech. If today’s students are increasingly hostile to intellectual freedom, can we really expect tomorrow’s voters, lawyers, judges, politicians to uphold free speech? To champion that principle, you have to value dialogue, knowledge, and, ultimately, the reasoning mind. Yet reason is precisely what those student agitators subordinated to their emotions.

About The Author

Elan Journo

Senior Fellow and Vice President of Content Products, Ayn Rand Institute