YAF Gaffe

The George Washington University chapter of the conservative group, Young American's Foundation, was all set to take part in "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week" when suddenly some nasty posters appeared on campus.

The posters stated "Hate Muslims? So Do We!!” and got worse from there. Any reasonable person could see they were parodies meant to attack the YAF and "I-F A Week," but that didn't stop the GWU administration from demanding an apology from the YAF. As they put it, “There is no place for expressions of hatred on our campus. We do not condone, and we will not tolerate the dissemination of fliers or other documents that vilify any religious, ethnic or racial group.” They even sent emails to some of the conservatives students asking them to disavow any future hate speech.

The actual students who put up the posters were discovered. These seven noted the poster was a satire not meant to offend Muslims. Now the YAF chapter has put out a letter demanding the administration condemn these students and demand they apologize. There's some logic here--if YAF was supposed to apologize, shouldn't the real people behind the posters do it?

But the YAF is wrong. The original posters are insulting, true (though not to Muslims, but to the YAF), but students should be allowed to insult each others.

The administration is hypocritical, perhaps, but that's no reason to demand they do the wrong thing.