Speakers' choice

Editorial

"Uh-oh, here comes the advice."

That's how Ken Burns began his commencement address at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Such speeches are traditionally replete with wise words, carefully parsed and artfully couched in often amusing anecdotal context. "Travel. Do not get stuck in one place" was one of Burns' sage maxims.

Burns, a documentary filmmaker, was one of a parade of speakers, some well-known, some not, who took to the nation's more than 4,000 college and university podiums this spring to address the class of 2002. Others included U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) at Wake Forest University, writer Alice Hoffman at Adelphi University, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at Syracuse University as well as a number of student speakers.

At Harvard, student speaker Zayed Yasin garnered a fair share of national attention with his provocative choice of speech title and his pro-Palestinian sympathies, evident from his fund raising for the Holy Land Foundation reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The foundation is a charity that the U. S. Treasury Department has recently listed as a supporter of Hamas. The speech was scheduled to be delivered in Cambridge on June 6.

Its official title, "Of Faith and Citizenship: My American Jihad," was pared to "Of Faith and Citizenship" in response to a campus uproar when it was announced last week.

Yasin, the former president of the Harvard Islamic Society, was one of three student speakers chosen by a faculty panel. He insists that that his use of the word "jihad" is solely within its meaning of personal struggle, not within the context of Islamic holy war.

His defenders, including one of the deans who selected the speakers, assert that the speech will inspire hope and reason. His detractors worry about its possible hidden political nexus.

Still, most defend Yasin's right to speak.

Which brings us back to Burns and his advice.

The healthy hubbub on Harvard's campus reminds of the innate purpose of a liberal arts education: to stimulate independent thinking, to hone analytical skills, to encourage reasoned dialogue, to ignite the very intellectual furor that Yasin's words sparked.

Yes, his words may prove to be repugnant. But they are precisely the words that our precious First Amendment was designed to protect and the discourse such freedoms are meant to inspire.

That's surely worthy advice for our graduates as we launch them on their travels through life.

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