Debating controversial topics without fear of reprisal is a core value of an open society, says Linda Lotridge Levin, a journalism professor at the University of Rhode Island.

10:34 AM EST on Thursday, February 19, 2004

BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer

Rhode Island School of Design President Roger Mandle thought of author Salman Rushdie yesterday, as he read about the proposed homeland security act. Rushdie was condemned to death in 1989 by extreme Islamic clerics who were offended by his writings.

"It sounds like a totalitarian nation in the making in our small state," Mandle said. He urged Governor Carcieri to reconsider the bill, which seeks to include "acts of terrorism" in antiquated, unenforced state laws that restrict speech. Freedom of speech is one of five rights protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"Our role as artists and designers is to challenge the government in every respect," Mandle said. "Helping to raise big questions can now be interpreted by someone looking at this bill as somehow falling into a homeland security threat."

Editor's note: Governor Carcieri has proposed legislation that some experts believe would impose limits on how Rhode Islanders exercise the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Providence Journal today explores how the state's citizens use these freedoms daily.

Carcieri's bill shocks constitutional scholars

Organized public protests a cornerstone of American democracy

Restrictions on records would hamper press

Educators are asking who's to say what can be said?

In post-9/11 America, tolerance takes on a special value

R.I. Supreme Court will rule on effort to silence those with grievances

Digital Extra: Read the full text of Governor Carcieri's proposed legislation relating to homeland security

A chilling effect on new, risky or unpopular ideas is one possible outcome, agrees James A. Morone, who teaches political science at Brown Univerity.

Economist Milton Friedman's "small government is better" theory was dismissed three decades ago as radical, fringe, out-of-the-mainstream. Then Friedman won the Nobel Prize in 1976. His ideas caught fire, particularly with conservatives, and in 1988 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the National Medal of Science.

"Things that seem crazy today, everyone might agree with tomorrow," Morone said, citing the abolition of slavery and granting women the right to vote as two other examples. "That's the whole idea of the university as a marketplace of ideas. If you shut that down, the country stops developing."

When Morone teaches Friedman's theories, he often traces their origins to ideas of 19th-century anarchists.

"It sounds to me like if I try to teach this, that might be unlawful," Morone said.

Political groups such as the Brown Young Communist League and the International Socialist Organization could come under attack, said Brian Chidester, a member of the socialist group.

Chidester said it seems the law has no other purpose than to infringe on people's rights and close debate.

"We oppose the war in Iraq and have said we want an end to the U.S. occupation," he said. "That could now be twisted to say that we are calling for an overthrow of the U.S. government."

Debating controversial topics without fear of reprisal is a core value of an open society, one that universities try to protect, said Linda Lotridge Levin, a journalism professor at the University of Rhode Island.

Her students discussed this week the debate at Roger Williams University, where a conservative student group started a "whites only" scholarship.

"We talked about how they have a right to do that, however misguided it may be, and it opened up a whole discussion about how students feel about affirmative action," Levin said.