EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — The students stomped their feet, heckled and then stood and turned their backs as the speaker at the University of Oregon defended red-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and called Martin Luther King Jr. a communist dupe.
With more than 30 security officers assigned to keep the peace, the 90-something patriarch of the group sat in a wheelchair next to the speaker, silently observing the spectacle while at times half-asleep.
A campus with a reputation for young, leftist radicals has been roiled in protest in recent weeks as the aging collection of extremists – deemed a hate group by those who track the issue – has intensified its message, including a Hitler salute at an event in December.
Some students say their speech has made the university a dangerous place and want them banned from campus. Administrators now find themselves trapped between the ideal of tolerance and the right to free speech, searching for a way to have both.
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