"We've never had free speech in this country," professed Patricia L. Keeton of Ramapo College. This 'so why start now' characterized the tone of the "When Hate Groups Target Campus Newspapers" panel at the Modern Language Association's (MLA) annual convention in New Orleans. More than 10,000 academics convened in the Big Easy for hundreds of panel discussions on various topics, including "hate speech."

When the panel spotted this reporter's MLA badge reading "Accuracy in Academia," Bill Mullen of the University of Texas-San Antonio asked, "What's Accuracy in Academia?" Jeffery Ross of the Anti Defamation League (ADL) answered: "It's a spin off of Accuracy In Media. A conservative group." Upon hearing this, the panel prohibited Accuracy in Academia from recording the presentation, claiming the MLA had rules against recording. Nowhere in the MLA's program does it list any ban on recording. Other panels had no problems with being taped. Some sessions were even videotaped.

The panel commenced by discussing actual hate groups and prominent racists, including William Pierce, leader of the white supremacist National Alliance and author of The Turner Diaries, and Bradley Smith, a prominent holocaust denier.

The panel then took a dramatic turn, linking prominent mainstream conservatives, including the attorney general of the United States and bestselling author David Horowitz, with the aforementioned Pierce and Smith.

David Horowitz's ad "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Slavery Are a Bad Idea for Black People-And Racist Too" was characterized as "hate speech." Both Bill Mullen and Kevin Borgeson of Stonehill College placed Holocaust revisionist Smith and Horowitz, a Jew, into the same category. They even made comparisons between conservative Horowitz and national socialist William Pierce. As Mullen continued his diatribe against Horowitz, he explained that free speech should not be a right, but a "prize to be won."

According to panelist Patricia Keeton, something of greater concern than racism on campus should be "classism." She condemned colleges for not admitting enough "low income" students, and equated this with the past segregation of blacks. Keeton shifted gears and then placed John Ashcroft and the FBI into the category of "hate." She encouraged faculty and students to resist any FBI investigation into terrorist activities by refusing to cooperate with authorities.

The panel also took time to push its views opposing the war in Afghanistan. The panel's flier featured anti-American websites, noting ones with commentaries by Noam Chomsky.

It was quite clear that the panel's message was to encourage greater campus censorship. Their argument for more speech codes was a familiar one: "hate speech" is not free speech. Controversial speakers, contrarian newspaper ads, and conservative student newspapers were all fair game for censorship. From David Horowitz to John Ashcroft, mainstream conservatives were part of what they called "the racist right."

Even at the Modern Language Association, not everyone agreed. Things got heated when the panel opened the floor to comments and granted others the "prize" of free speech.

English professor Dave Williams of George Mason University pointed out that the "hate speech" the panel had discussed could not be censored because it was not illegal. Jeffery Ross interrupted Williams and began talking about the World Church of the Creator putting fliers on cars. Once again, Williams pointed out that while the Nazi group's leaflets are offensive, they are not illegal.

Williams admitted to being part of the Students for a Democratic Society in the 1960s. He pointed out the hypocrisy of liberals who fought for free speech then and now censor ideas they do not approve.

Ross refused to address any further comments from Williams, forcing the professor to shout, "Tell them what really happened at Brown!" Williams was referring to the widespread newspaper thefts of The Brown Daily Herald after Horowitz's ad ran in the student publication. Professors had supported the thefts, and administrators refused to sanction the perpetrators.

"It's a question of power. And they were exercising power. They just don't want certain points of view put forward. Rather than attacking the hatefulness of the speech, they were attacking the method by which it was disseminated," Williams told Accuracy in Academia. "They want freedom of speech for themselves, but you look at any socialist government and the first thing they clamp down on is free press. And that was the implication of a lot of the talk here. People were basically saying, there are race and class and power relationships here which have to be taken into consideration. Which is to say, the working class needs to seize power and tell people what to do and what not to do…. Censorship is the underlying agenda here. Nobody used that word but that's what they were talking about. We need to find a way to censor this kind of speech because it's bad. As opposed to, we need a way to refute it because it's bad."