Letter: Ignorance not threat in itself

Sunday, Oct. 25, 1998 | 2:40 a.m.

UNLV Police Officer Bill Mason's e-mail to university employees, which was triggered by a campuswide e-mail announcement of a "Coming Out Day" for gays and lesbians, is quoted: "Please be advised that many (most of us) deeply resent your unauthorized use of the university 'Net system to promote this form of mental illness. You wish to belong to the above group, fine. Stop wasting my tax dollars with this trash."

This "drew the attention of panelists at a university symposium on hate crimes?"

All that Mason did is 1) express his disapproval, 2) call attention to his ignorance of the nature of homosexuality (it is not professionally regarded as mental illness), 3) express tolerance of anyone wanting to "belong to the above group," and 4) categorize the proposed celebration as a waste of tax dollars.

Where is there any threat of or incitement to commit a crime, hate or otherwise, much less the commission of a crime? Does disapproval equal intolerance? Is one who tolerates without either accepting or approving in fact intolerant?

UNLV President Carol Harter appears to think so. Her response, calling these "intolerant words ... chilling in an academic community," suggests that UNLV is moving to join the ranks of many other American universities that have sacrificed our First Amendment on the altar of what she describes as a "just and inclusive campus environment."

But justice and inclusiveness must not foreclose disagreement, however unpleasant; a campus environment, however inclusive, will not be just within the meaning of the First Amendment if it does not tolerate nonviolent dissent, however distasteful that dissent may be to the politically correct majority.

C.H. McCrea, Sr.

archive