The Problem of Sense and Sensitivity

By Joe Kardon

Published on Thursday, November 9, 2006

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To the Editor:

The "debate" over free speech rages from a comic strip in The Dartmouth to a comic strip of Mohammed. Suggesting that the right to free speech is a merely a "guise" for hateful content is a foolhardy display of selective ignorance. Questioning free speech is neither here nor there in this debate. I am shocked to hear the question even brought up in our institution of liberal education.

I object to the conflation of the suggestion of sexual assault with explicit overtures to historical horrors such as the Holocaust or fatal racism.

Do not allow your sensitivity to overcome your sense.