UCLA Administrator Equates Offensive Speech, Death Threats

The UCLA student who posted the "Asians in the Library" video has apparently received death threats. If you want to understand what FIRE is up against when fighting censorship on campus, look no further than the response of UCLA Dean of Students Robert Naples to those threats. As our Robert Shibley noted yesterday, Naples told the student newspaper that "If she's received a death threat, I find that as deplorable as her original YouTube video." (Emphasis added.)

That's right: a high-level administrator at UCLA has gone on the record that offensive but protected speech is the moral equivalent of a threat on someone's life. Think about that the next time you wonder why censorship on campus is so persistent.