Eric Langborgh

bomb-sniffing dog, two full-body metal detectors, two hand-held metal detector wands, at least ten security guards, and four units of the guest's blood type are all that Brandeis University's administration is requiring of student organizers to keep the March 28 Charlton Heston speech from being canceled.
     Citing the president of the National Rifle Association's "controversial views" as the reason behind their actions, Brandeis University proceeded to require the series of security requirements that Heston's publicists and seasoned security personnel have labeled "ridiculous," and have made the group of students bringing the famous actor to campus wonder if the administration is accepting a form of the heckler's veto of the event.
     "Once we leap one hurdle, we have to leap another," Bryan Rudnick, editor of the event's sponsor, Freedom Magazine, explained.
     Those hurdles are not cheap. Estimates place rental of the dog at $1000, the ten to fifteen police officers from Brandeis'

Office of Public Safety and the Town of Waltham, Massachusetts Police Department at $2500, and the two full-body metal detectors to be placed at the auditorium entrance doors at $2500.
     The administration, though, vehemently denies an attempt at censorship of Heston's conservative views and disputes the claim that they requested his blood type.
     "We are not putting roadblocks in this kid's way," protested Vice-President of Public Affairs Michal Reagunberg. "If he wants to lie about it, that's fine, but I don't have to play his game."
     Yet Rudnick holds that Ed Callahan, the Director of Public Safety at Brandeis, did in fact state that they would require Heston's blood type along with the paramedic team the school says it usually keeps ready for large public events. According to Rudnick, Callahan made this demand during a meeting on March 8 in his office with Stephanie Ruark from the Office of Campus Life, Roman Cermak from the Office of Conferences and Events, and Reagunberg all present.
     All involved, however, refused to answer direct questions from Campus Report, instead referring all inquiries to Dennis Nealon, the Director of Media Relations, who did not attend the meeting but nonetheless has taken the role of "official" voice for Brandeis University.
     Nealon claimed he made no directive for a media blackout by employees of the University, despite the unwillingness of those interviewed to answer direct questions surrounding the March 8 meeting on the blood charge and the school's reasoning behind the heavy security requirements. "I frankly don't give a damn what you write," swore Nealon in response to a question regarding this.
     "That's why we have media relations here," offered Cermak in defense of his refusal to answer questions. Still, when pressed about the March 8 meeting, Cermak retorted, "How do you know I was at that meeting?" though he neither confirmed nor denied his presence there.
     Callahan, too, swore silence when questioned, deferring all inquiries to the "official spokesman" for the University, Dennis Nealon. Callahan, however, would neither confirm nor deny that he requested Heston's blood type.
     Nealon, for his part, terms the claim "nonsense," saying, "[Rudnick] is the only one with that impression on the whole campus."
     A spokesman at Waltham Deaconess Hospital said that he was not aware of any contact with the University regarding blood supplies, and Heston's publicist has also not been contacted by the University regarding Heston's blood type, leading some to surmise that officials at the school chose to drop the demand soon after it was announced.
     Regardless, the other security precautions are not in dispute. What is in dispute, though, is whether they are the "standard security measures" Nealon contends "would be adopted in the event of anyone of [Heston's] stature."
     "First of all, they are not extreme," Nealon told Campus Report. "They are the cautions the University deems appropriate to ensure as best it can the safety of a very prominent figure who is an international celebrity, as well as a representative of some very controversial views."
     It is this sentiment that has Rudnick worried the Brandeis Administration is trying to silence his group and force the cancellation of Heston's speech. "Instead of saying his ideas spark controversy, they say Heston has 'controversial views,'"

Rudnick pointed out. "Who is the arbiter of what's controversial and what's not?"
     Nealon stated that this is not the first time similar security precautions have been instituted on student-sponsored events at least partially at student expense. However, despite claiming they have been used a "few times" in the past, he could only name one: Meir Kahane.
     Students invited Rabbi Meir Kahane, the radical founder of the militant Jewish Defense League, to the campus in the late eighties. Unlike Heston, though, Kahane came amid very public threats of assassination against him by Muslim fanatics. In fact, Kahane was assassinated shortly after his speech at Brandeis by Arab terrorist El Sayyid Nosair, known now for his involvement in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City.
     In the case of Charlton Heston, on the other hand, the school has received no death threats and none have been publicly made against him.
     What they do point to is a protest Heston witnessed when he recently traveled to Northwestern University—the school he attended more than four decades ago. The extent of the distraction: two students were escorted away from Heston's speech for refusing to put down their placards inside the auditorium. The two students were cited—not arrested, as Nealon claimed—for disorderly conduct after ignoring repeated warnings to lower their signs so they would not be a distraction to other audience members' ability to see the event. Security at Northwestern and at recent Heston events at Pennsylvania State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and American University have consisted of, on average, two security personnel inside and two outside the respective auditoriums. Only common sense guidelines like prohibitions on bringing backpacks into the event were issued. In the case of Penn State, over 2500 people attended Heston's speech with no incidents reported, even though bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors were not present.
     "They do security different" than we do, answered Nealon when asked about this.
     Nealon also claims that Rudnick's group has greatly exaggerated the cost imposed upon them, saying the cost is "more like $3500."
     "That's because he can't do simple math," Rudnick retorted, pointing to a sum total of at least $6000, and possibly much more when the additional cost of chairs, placed upon them when they were forced to change locales for the speech, and even more so for the two hand-held metal detector wands mandated by the University.
     "If there is a political agenda at work here, it has nothing to do with the University," Nealon asserted, adding that Brandeis has picked up some of the direct costs for the event through certain departments like the Office of Public Safety, though Rudnick says he'll believe it when he sees it, and that these concession have followed media pressure. Dean of Student Affairs Rod Crafts has also relented and agreed to pay for one of the metal detectors. In addition, the student government has chipped in $5000, though that money comes not from tuition or the administration, but from the mandatory student activities fee.
     This is not the first time that Rudnick has had run-ins with the Brandeis Administration. Last school year, the administration looked the other way after hundreds of issues of his publication, Freedom Magazine, were trashed on separate occasions by objecting student senators. The lack of condemnation by the administration of the destruction of property and the censorship of conservative views was seen by many as tacit approval of the vandals' actions. The same student senators later lead the charge to de-fund and de-charter the conservative student publication.
     Over the course of Rudnick's four years at Brandeis, conservative speakers have been almost non-existent. Only conservative lawyer and columnist Ann Coulter, grassroots organizer for the NRA Glen Caroline, and author Dinesh D'Souza have been brought to campus to speak, and then only due to the efforts of Rudnick. Meanwhile, liberal activists, like former White House spokesman George Stephanopoulis and feminist Gloria Steinem, have regularly appeared on campus, with Robert Reich, Anita Hill, Ann Richards, and Ed Koch all taking at least temporary spots on the Brandeis faculty. Hill just had her contract renewed for three more years.
     As for the Heston event, the speech is scheduled to proceed as scheduled, but the whole fiasco surrounding security at the event has left a sour taste in many mouths.