Salman Rushdie canceled? Pro-Palestinian groups hamper speech for everyone else | Opinion
Salman Rushdie, who survived a brutal knife attack in 2022, canceled a speech at Claremont McKenna College after Muslim students condemned his invitation.
I read novelist Salman Rushdie’s harrowing account of his near-assassination about a year ago. It’s still etched in my mind.
In his memoir “Knife,” Rushdie described in detail how he almost died in 2022 after being stabbed 12 times by a madman who hated Rushdie’s work. The Booker Prize-winning author, who was blinded in one eye and is lucky to be alive, was giving a talk in New York about the value of free expression when he was attacked, which is tragically ironic.
Not surprisingly, Rushdie is cautious now about where he speaks and appears in public.
So, it caught my attention when I saw that he’d decided to withdraw as this year’s commencement speaker at Claremont McKenna College, a private school in California.
Rushdie made that call after student and local Muslim groups "condemned" Rushdie's invitation and said it was “disrespectful” for him to step foot on the campus after he had – accurately – described pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses as supporting a “fascist terrorist group” (AKA Hamas).
This was too much for Rushdie, whose attacker was an Islamic extremist who wanted to murder the author because he had supposedly “offended” Islam in his 1988 book “The Satanic Verses.”
“I’m surprised, relieved and happy,” Claremont College Muslim Students Association president Kumail Afshar said after Rushdie backed out in fear.
That hardly seems like a victory: The protestors kept an entire campus from hearing from one of the world's most esteemed living writers.
Canceling a speaker is not ‘diversity and inclusion’
Cancel culture and attacks on freedom of speech are nothing new on college campuses. Indeed, the “diversity, equity and inclusion” mantra of recent years has only made it worse by pitting some people and groups against others.
The rampant displays of antisemitism and violence on campuses following the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel in 2023 have made that fact crystal clear.
In addition to the Muslim students who couldn’t bear the thought of hearing from Rushdie, the Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations inserted itself into the debate. Ahead of the planned graduation speech, the CAIR chapter called on Claremont McKenna College to address students’ concerns over Rushdie’s “troubling statements.”
“CMC cannot claim to value diversity and inclusion while dismissing the voices of its students,” CAIR wrote in a statement.
In an interview last year, Rushdie had made the following observation: “I feel that there’s not a lot of deep thought happening. There’s an emotional reaction to the death in Gaza, and that’s absolutely right. But when it slides over towards antisemitism and sometimes to actual support of Hamas, then it’s very problematic.”
That’s a perfectly reasonable analysis of what’s been happening at U.S. colleges. Yet, this was too “troubling” for the Muslim groups. It’s hard to see how bullying someone, particularly someone who nearly died while advocating for free speech, into canceling an appearance is anywhere close to “diversity and inclusion.”
Intolerance of other views is antithetical to what our country is all about
While the Muslim students have a right to express themselves, this incident is part of a troubling series of campus events where protests purportedly on behalf of Palestinians have turned raucous and violent. Jewish students and faculty have felt afraid.
Robert Shibley, special counsel for campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told me that what happened to Rushdie doesn’t fall neatly into the cancellation category since the college didn’t withdraw its invitation in response to the backlash.
But there’s a good reason why it still rubs free speech advocates – and most Americans – the wrong way.
“Are we operating on a level where we are trying to win the battle of ideas simply by silencing the other side or making it impossible or uncomfortable or just generally difficult for the other side to speak?” Shibley said. “I think that’s why things like this stick in a lot of people’s craw because you get the sense that this isn’t the way a democratic society is supposed to be working out these kinds of issues.”
Last week, Rushdie’s attacker, Hadi Matar, was sentenced to 25 years in prison. At his sentencing, the judge told Matar that his violence wasn’t only against Rushdie, but against free expression as well.
“It goes to the very heart of what our country stands for,” Foley said.
I wish Rushdie had spoken at the commencement, regardless of the bullying, though it’s perfectly understandable why he didn’t.
What’s unacceptable is the intolerance shown for his right to speak.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at Paste BN. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on X: @Ingrid_Jacques