Over the centuries that have passed since our country became independent from Great Britain, there have been many horrific acts against humans. Some of them include the Japanese imprisonment after the Pearl Harbor bombing, the slaughter of millions of Chinese immigrants that were later buried beneath our railroad tracks and the most unforgettable of African American Slavery.
African American Slavery has been a widespread controversial issue since their freedom in . Many have rallied for reparations for the awful treatment and years of anguish the Blacks had to endure. Recently, an advertisement entitled Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad IdeaÃÂþ and Racist Too was created by David Horowitz, a former Black Panther turned conservative activist, and sent to more than 30 college newspaper in hopes that the ad would be printed. Although, not every college printed the ad, those who did suffered through an outrage of many angry students and protesters.
English: 13th Amendment of the nited States Consti...
English: 16th Amendment of the United States Const...
speaking at CPAC in Washington D.C. on February 12...The ad was deemed racist by opposing activists. Horowitz and others have turned the debate surrounding the advertisement's rejection into a debate about the First Amendment and Free Speech. Whether to print the advertisement is not a free speech issue, but an issue of a newspapers right to control it's own content.
While the First Amendment protects David Horowitz's right to produce and distribute his ad, the First Amendment also protects the rights of individual editors to make a decision whether or not to print the ad. When the ad was published in the UC Berkeley's paper, protesters stormed the office of the editor and demanded an apology. Of course, the students have a right to be angry and dispute the claims of Horowitz's advertisement; it is their freedom of speech. However, they did not make any arguments, they stormed offices and tore up...