Last week at Mallory College a speaker invited by the Majority Students Organization condemned "whites, Jews and their cracker supporters among the so-called educated class." The speaker, Abdul Muhammad, described whites as "devils" and said the U.S. is "controlled by an influential Jewish community determined to keep minorities repressed and powerless." You have gathered responses to the talk and are instructed by your editor to write 300 words.

Here are some of the responses:

Ruth Pitts Renaldi, president of Mallory College:

Mallory is a place where ideas are exchanged, examined, debated and judged. Some ideas are misguided, but we count on the bright light of reason to expose and shrivel them. The answer to hate is more speech, not enforced silence. I note with pride that this point has been widely understood in the Mallory community.

I have also said, "We must work to ensure that all our dealings with each other are marked by decency and characterized by civility. We must do what we can to engender mutual respect, understanding, even empathy." Every campus organization has the right to invite speakers of its choice, but having the right, or freedom, or power to do something is the beginning of ethical inquiry, not the end of it. "I have the right to do what I am doing" is very different from "I am doing what is right." Many Americans miss that distinction.

A hateful speaker has come and gone, and I hope we can heal the wounds caused by his visit, though they are deep and painful. It is time for those who exercised their right to invite him to ask themselves whether they did the right thing. Can they in their hearts feel good about having been so indifferent to the feelings of their colleagues as to invite back to Mallory a man who had openly insulted Jews on his last visit?

This is a good time for all of us to think about what we owe one another. This is a good time to remember that there can be no community without mutual respect, understanding, even empathy.

Stanley Morson, head of the MSO:

I just hope people really heard what he had to say. His message was inspiring.

Gerald Stern, head of the Jewish Student Union:

The speech blew apart anything I'd ever experienced in terms of anti-Semitism, racism and the proliferation of hatred.

The student newspaper, the Spectator , carried a long editorial on the talk that included the following:

The Majority Students' Organization has sponsored anti-Semitic speakers on this campus over the past three years. We are tired of these offensive actions.

The MSO understood full well the nature of the talk their invited speaker was likely to give. It also knows that the Nation of Islam is notoriously anti-Semitic.

If the MSO cannot explain its action we must conclude that the organization is itself anti-Semitic.

The MSO can invite anyone it wishes, but that invitation does not establish the validity of the content of the speech. Nor does an invitation to a speaker promoting hatred constitute responsible behavior by the organization.

The dean of students, William Sharman, stated in a letter to the Spectator, "the MSO has acted irresponsibly by inviting a known anti-Semite and hate-monger to this campus to air his message of religious intolerance." The MSO responded by accusing Sharman of racism. A petition in support of Sharman's letter was signed by 800 Mallory College students.

William Parrington, professor of political science, said in an interview, "The position of the MSO is clearly indefensible. It cannot deny that the anti-Semitic sentiments of its speaker were well known. It knew full well what it was doing when it invited him. It is strange that college students should be so committed to a philosophy of religious hatred. Polls show that intolerance declines as the level of education increases.

"In one recent poll, 37 percent of the blacks interviewed were classified in a category described as the 'most anti-Semitic.' But the percentage declined dramatically for college students. Seventeen percent of whites, by the way, were in the most anti-Semitic group."

You ask Parrington to hazard a guess as to the reason the speaker was invited.

"There are two obvious reasons. First, the organization has an agenda determined by a few leaders, and the membership feels it must go along in the name of group solidarity. I have had students, members of the MSO, come up to me and say they are ashamed of what the organization is doing but that they cannot speak out for fear of causing dissension. The second is that these few leaders who espouse anti-Semitism realize they are untouchable since on a liberal campus no one wants to be seen to be critical of blacks, whatever wild cause they endorse."

Parrington, who is black, is the author of many articles and books on the experiences of African Americans in the United States.

In a day-long silent protest in the middle of the campus, the MSO attacked Sharman. MSO president Stanley Morson said, "We have been silenced by the media. The president and the dean's office have condemned us. Certain students are threatening us physically and financially. This kind of intimidation cannot go on a free and democratic campus."

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