Actually, in these times and on campuses in particular, the definition of racism is increasingly suspect. Case in point: The Badger-Herald, a University of Wisconsin student paper, published the ad on Feb. 28. Five days later, the rival student paper, the Daily Cardinal, published an ad written by the Multicultural Students Coalition. The ad did not reply to the 10 points presented in my ad (and, to this date, there has not been a single ad to my knowledge replying to those points). Instead the Cardinal ad attacked the Badger-Herald as a "racist propaganda machine." The editorial offices of the Badger-Herald were then besieged by a mob of 100 students demanding the resignation of the paper's editor, Julie Bosman, and apologies (for racism) from its staff. These are tactics that have a long and regrettable history that originated with the fascist and communist mobs of the '30s that were sent to break up the peaceful meetings of their social democratic rivals. It's the politics of smear and intimidation, designed to silence opposition and stamp out free speech. Nothing could be more inimical to a university setting, yet not a single student involved in these activities has been disciplined or reprimanded by the University of Wisconsin administration.

Tshaka Barrows is a spokesperson for the Multicultural Students Coalition. The Daily Cardinal interviewed her about her campaign:

Cardinal: Does the Horowitz ad fit your definition of racism?

Barrows: Exactly. Because of the reality of our society, his prejudice was allowed to be institutionalized, and [16,000] of his statements were presented to our campus. He was actively, as well as the Herald, exercising their racism, their power to institutionalize their racism.

Cardinal: [What] is your definition of racism?

Barrows: Racism is having the power to institutionalize your prejudice.

In other words, my offense is publishing my ideas, which Barrows doesn't like. (Her definition of racism, by the way, is a concoction of tenured leftists that accomplishes the feat of defining racism in such a way that "only whites can be racist.")

Insinuating racism -- without taking the trouble to establish actual racism -- is the McCarthy method. It was on display in a column Jonathan Alter wrote about me in the April 2 issue of Newsweek. A color photograph illustrating the column was placed in the middle of the page. It showed one of the student protesters at the UC-Berkeley carrying a sign with the words: "PROTEST DAVID HOROWITZ, RACIST IDEOLOGUE." Alter's article made no reference to the photo. Nor did it explain that the protesters were members of the Spartacist Youth League, a Trotskyist splinter group whose members also denounced me as a "capitalist running dog." The image was allowed to just stand there, making me appear to be a theoretician for the Posse Comitatus or some lunatic fringe group. In his column, Alter derisively dismissed my complaint that I was under siege by "left-wing McCarthyism."

"Please. Newspapers, exercising their own freedom, routinely reject advertising they believe might offend the sensibilities of their readers."

They do. But that's obviously not what happened in this case. Alter attempted to discredit me by describing me as a member of "the extreme right" when, in fact, I am a moderate on abortion, a defender of gays, a strong supporter of civil rights and of large government programs to help inner-city minority kids. What Alter did was use the McCarthy technique of character assassination by exaggeration ("Professor Lattimore is Stalin's chief agent in America"). Alter says that my reasoned ad "reminds [him] of one of those tiresome rants supporting a NAAWP (National Association for the Advancement of White People)" -- which would be classic guilt by association, except that I am not associated with any group or anybody who thinks like this. Finally, Alter imputes to me a mean-spirited agenda that I have never had. "The not-so-subtle subtext [of the ad] was that we've given 'them' enough, and so should give up on addressing the continuing problems of race and poverty in America." Since I am the architect of a congressional bill to provide $100 billion in scholarships to inner-city minority kids, this is hardly a just accusation. Its only purpose is to delegitimize me and stigmatize me as a "racist."

A similar innuendo-laced attack was leveled by Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, who suggested that while I was not an actual racist, and while "word for word, the ad makes sense," the editors were still justified in not running it, and the campus fascists were really legitimately provoked into their attacks on free speech. His reasoning? Apparently he found my tone and address "insulting" and "offensive."

I'm not sure I can put my finger on what exactly offended me when I first read the ad. It might have been its statement that blacks, as well as whites, engaged in the slave trade and owned slaves. True enough, but only blacks were slaves. It might have been the what's-the-big-deal tone to the argument that almost all African Americans live so much better than almost all Africans that they ought to be downright grateful that their ancestors were kidnapped and dumped on the beach at Charleston. Or it might have been Horowitz's assertion that welfare payments constitute reparations of a sort. This is a downright insulting statement.

This justifies attacks on the editors of newspapers who ran the ad as the managers of a "racist propaganda machine"? What Cohen forgets is that my ad is not an article on reparations, it is a response to the claims of reparations proponents -- a response that students would not be able to hear if I hadn't decided to buy the space to provide them with an opposing point of view.

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