An objectivist group at George Mason has had to reschedule a speaker advocating a hard line against Islamic totalitarianism.

John Lewis, who teaches history at Ashland University, was invited to speak in conjunction with an article he wrote in December titled "No Substitute for Victory: The Defeat of Islamic Totalitarianism."

In the article, Lewis calls for war against the Islamic government in Iran and the "immediate, personal destruction" of Muslim clerics and intellectuals who advocate the formation or support of an Islamic state.

The speech had been sponsored in part by the school's Objectivist Club, which promotes the social philosophies of self-interest of author Ayn Rand. The invitation was pulled after the school received complaints from Muslim students and it was discovered that the club's charter had lapsed.

Lewis said Friday that the speech had been tentatively rescheduled for April, with the university's College Republicans club as a new sponsor. But university spokesman Daniel Walsch said the school had received no notice of the club's invitation.

The Objectivist Club at GMU, a student group that promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, says it had someone else to help book the room on campus after it learned of its oversight in letting the club's registration lapse -- not an uncommon occurrence on a university campus, I assure you -- but the faculty member who helped secure the room apparently backed out when it appears the issue got hot. That faculty member's department "did not want to be involved with any sort of controversial event."

So apparently a group at GMU was able to both 1) use the student government system to disbar a group from holding an event on campus due to paperwork and 2) dissuade faculty from bringing a controversial speaker to campus. This at a public institution. Do the taxpayers of Virginia support this type of behavior?

Labels: censorship, higher education