No surprise then that at the debate organized to discuss the issue two weeks later, Horowitz was booed off the stage by a large crowd of angry protesters. At first, I thought of dismissing all this as yet another case of Berkeley hysteria. After four years at the University, I have become used to the spectacle of students clamoring over illusory slights. Most of the time, it’s better not to pay attention. But it’s not just the University of California this time. To date, Horowitz has submitted his ad to 59 different college papers. Of these, 35 have rejected it, 14 have printed it, and the rest have chosen to wait and see which way the controversy goes before deciding on whether to run the ad. Of the 14 papers which printed the ad, those at Berkeley, Arizona State and the University of California, Davis, have already issued apologies. The others have, with difficulty, kept the ad. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, papers featuring the ad were seized and a large protest was led against the editorial staff. At Brown University, the offices of the Brown Daily were stormed and the print run destroyed.

Horowitz, it would seem, has touched a nerve. What could he have said to stir up such controversy? Since someone defaced the official copy of the Daily Cal at Berkeley’s periodical room, I had to go online to find out (http://www.frontpagemag.com/horowitzsnotepad/2001/hn01-03-01.htm). I was surprised by what I found. Though the ad is clearly designed to provoke, it is hardly the racist rant Horowtiz’ opponents claim. "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks — and Racist Too" is an attempt to refute the case for paying African-Americans reparations for slavery. The notion of reparations has a host of recent precedents and, in the past few years, has won wide support on the Left. Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Japanese-Americans interned in World War II camps, and the African-American subjects of racial experiments at the Tuskegee Institute have all won reparations in recent years. And yet, Horowitz argues in his ad, the case of slavery is different.

In support of this claim, Horowitz offers 10 arguments. The best of these are common sense. For instance, Horowitz points out that in every previous case, the recipients of reparative payments have themselves been the direct victims of injustice. Since slavery ended 136 years ago, this is not a case that can be made for contemporary African-Americans. Horowitz also summons a host of reasons why Americans living today should not be held responsible for the crimes committed by the tiny minority of white southern slave-holders over a hundred years ago. Today, most American citizens are the descendants of people who simply weren’t around to own African-American slaves in the first place: why should the descendants of Koreans, Turks and Poles be asked to pay for the injustices of a country their ancestors never saw? But even for those white Americans whose ancestors lived in the U.S. at the time of the Civil War, the case is far from clear cut. After all, over 350,000 white Americans died fighting the Confederacy. As Horowitz writes, "they gave their lives ... what possible moral principle would ask them to pay (through their descendants) again?"

These arguments are well-reasoned and pertinent. While they give supporters of reparations plenty to think about, taken alone it’s hard to see how they could generate much controversy. But Horowitz is not innocent of provocation. Several of the reasons listed in the ad seem expressly designed to ruffle the feathers of those sensitive to issues of racial grievance. According to Horowitz, for instance, black Americans have already been paid reparations:

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Acts and the advent of the Great Society in 1965, trillions of dollars in transfer payments have been made to African-Americans in the form of welfare benefits and racial preferences (in contracts, job placements and educational admissions) — all under the rationale of redressing historic racial grievances ... if trillion dollar restitutions and a wholesale rewriting of American law (in order to accommodate racial preferences) for African-Americans is not enough to achieve a ‘healing’, what will?

In a similar vein, Horowitz argues that the case for reparations depends upon the unproven assumption that African-Americans continue to suffer from the economic consequences of slavery. Against this claim, Horowitz points to the booming black middle class and the recent success of Caribbean immigrants to the US — themselves the descendants of African slaves — in gaining wealth. These success stories suggest that "economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago."

Controversial sentiments, to be sure, but are they, as the editors of the Daily Cal and other papers have suggested, "bigoted"? The answer is clearly "no." In publishing his ad, Horowitz’ overriding concern seems to have been to draw attention to the threat posed by the reparations movement to national solidarity — to the idea that all of us, as American citizens, have shared interests and values and that these are worth defending. According to Horowitz, the drive for reparations is just the latest attempt on the part of racial separatists on the Left to set African-Americans against the rest of the nation. It is a troubling development. As Horowitz writes, "The American idea needs the support of its African-American citizens ... but African-Americans also need the support of the American idea." To draw attention to his argument, Horowitz raises several intentionally controversial points. Though some might think these go too far, only a student schooled in racial paranoia could mistake Horowitz’ comments as disparaging to blacks.

And this is exactly what has happened. At campuses across the country, irate students inflamed by fantasies of racial injustice have once again shown their preference for force over reasoned debate. Here at Berkeley, this sort of irony has become routine. For years now, the University has prided itself on being the home of the Free Speech Movement. There’s a campus café named after the movement, a plaque dedicated to it in the campus’ main square, and histories of the movement appear in many of the University’s official publications. And yet Berkeley is not what it appears. With self-styled "progressives" in control of the administration as well as most of the faculties, few places outside of the People’s Republic of China are less hospitable to free speech. This was reflected in the days following the Daily Cal’s decision to pull Horowitz’ ad. So far, only one member of the administration (the much reviled Regent, Ward Connerly) has dared to condemn the papers’ action. The rest of the administration, as well as the vast majority of faculty and students, have been content to remain silent.

Their silence is telling. For whatever one thinks of the idea of reparations (I happen to agree with Horowitz), there is another and equally important issue at stake in the controversy over Horowitz’ ad: the place of free speech in today’s university culture. Far more interesting than the controversy stirred up by Horowitz’ ad is the controversy which it has not stirred up. By failing to stand up and demand that Horowtiz be given the right to make his voice heard, students and faculty have revealed the degree to which they have already given up on the idea of free speech itself.

Thirty years ago, this would have been surprising. But today, it is just one more proof of the devastating effect "identity politics" have had on our campuses. By so casually sacrificing free speech to the narcissistic and ultimately divisive sensitivities of minority groups, students and faculty across the country have more than amply justified Horowitz’ concerns about the future of our nation. Fostering free and open debate about matters of national importance has long been regarded as a fundamental duty of our university system. To give up on free speech is to give up on the idea that all of us, as American citizens, share interests and values and that these are worth defending. For years, it has been fashionable to scoff at this idea as a myth. If things continue in the present direction, it may yet become one.