Freedom of hate speech?

Max Karson is not funny. \nThat didn’t stop Karson, a staff editor of The Campus Press at the University of Colorado at Boulder, from penning a column titled,“If it’s war the Asians want ... ” in which he supposedly attempted to write satire. About what, we’re not entirely sure. Whatever it was, he went about it using hate speech rarely found in anyone’s mouth against an amorphous group of “Asians,” stirring up controversy on the Boulder campus.\nKarson claimed he just wanted to raise awareness of an issue.\n“Just from the interaction with the Asian students, I felt like they were grouping together because they felt ostracized from the rest of the CU community,” he said in an interview with Denver’s Rocky Mountain News. \nExactly how he raised this issue with phrases like “Captured Asians will be dragged to my apartment on the Hill and hog-tied,” is certainly beyond us.\nIn America, we have asserted the right to freedom of the press aggressively and firmly, and the IDS Editorial Board is no exception. We stand up for the members of the press (particularly our none-too-agreeable selves) who voice opinions that, while rude or unorthodox, have a right to be heard. But our right to free speech should not be abused. We applaud the University of Colorado at Boulder for not punishing Karson or The Campus Press.\nBeing a student journalist, however, is a responsibility – one Karson mightily abused. Yet the mistake was not only his, but also that of the paper’s management. His editors, who should have checked his work and ensured that its content was sound and its purpose worthwhile, instead seemed to shirk all responsibility in their response. \nInstead of apologizing for running such an unnecessarily inflammatory column, the editors apologized “for any ambiguity of the satire that may have been misconstrued.” \nWhat point was Karson making? Despite The Campus Press’ limp response, he had none. His column featured nothing but cheap humor based on racist stereotypes and blatant race-baiting.\nLet there be no mistake: The only ambiguity in Karson’s column existed between whether it was offensive or extremely offensive. Karson and his editors misunderstood that a college newspaper is not a comedy club, and without additional context, Karson’s column can be mistaken for nothing other than a reckless attack against Asians.\nIt’s often stated that we can dislike what people say but still defend to the death their right to say it. That shouldn’t stop us from noting how cheap, nauseating columns like Karson’s continue to give student journalists a bad name. When would-be clowns posing as student journalists abuse the privilege they have been given to print odious material, they invite the ire of establishment figures and university overlords to crack down on all student journalists.\nIn China, Pakistan, Russia and Mexico, journalists die for the freedom of the press. How can rags like The Campus Press treat it like this?