Word of a new attack on America came a few days before Christmas. This time it wasn't a crashing plane or deadly spores. It was a mob-minded rage directed against a woman who tried to speak out in favor of the Constitution.

        This wasn't a chanting crowd in front of one of our embassies somewhere. It happened at the California State University campus in Sacramento. The participants were a mostly middle-class crowd of family and friends on hand to see the mid-year graduation ceremonies.

        The target of the verbal assault was the commencement speaker, Janis Besler Heaphy, president and publisher of the Sacramento Bee.

        Ms. Heaphy started out with a theme full of red, white and blue. She praised the country's mood of resurgent patriotism in the wake of Sept. 11. But then she uttered a caution. She dared to ask whether in our zealous response to terrorism we might be putting some American values at risk.

        The words were not only “extremely thoughtful, but extremely responsible,” Donald R. Gerth, president of the university, said later.

        The crowd didn't see it that way. The boos started when she suggested that we should safeguard our rights to free speech and fair trials and against unlawful detainment. When she worried what would happen in this country if racial profiling became routine, the audience cheered.

        Dr. Gerth interrupted to urge this crowd of middle Americans to mind their manners. Then Ms. Heaphy continued. She argued that “the Constitution makes it our right to challenge government policies.” At that point the crowd booed her right off the stage.

        When I read the headlines on this story, I wondered what kind of idiots these people must be. Most of them were parents or relatives, gathered to honor the educational achievement of their children. The press accounts said most of the boos and catcalls came from the spectators, not the graduates, so I thought how embarrassing for these students that their parents would mar such a special moment with such boorish behavior. What does it say about parents who want their children to become college-educated yet remain ignorant and intolerant?

        But then I read further, to the part where the students commented, and the story just got worse. Several condemned the crowd's rowdiness, but criticized Ms. Heaphy for speaking on a “serious subject.” Oh what an insensitive thing to do! Imagine, asking college graduates, who presumably have been preparing for adulthood, to think serious thoughts about the world around them.

        “I feel that she brought the reaction of the crowd on herself,” student Jason Collins wrote in a letter to The Bee. “The consensus was that this forum was neither the time nor the place to be making such strong political statements as she did.”

        Cal State Sacramento ought to examine its curriculum if this is an example of the apolitical zombies it is turning out. “Neither the time nor the place” — What better time? What better place? We are now a country at war and war puts all of a nation's liberties at risk. Perhaps the university should offer the community a free course on the history of Japanese Americans from 1941-1945 so that people can learn what happened to many Californians when not enough people like Ms. Heaphy were willing to speak up.

        A member of the Cal State faculty later said he thought Ms. Heaphy's speech would have elicited the same reaction at almost any college or university in the country. His reasoning was that Americans were so hurt and angered by Sept. 11 that the only thing they value right now is a thirst for vengeance. I hope he is wrong. If not, we are facing a problem more insidious than anything Osama bin Laden has dreamed up.

        Had the people in that Sacramento audience quieted down last week, they would have heard Ms. Heaphy's final words: “America was founded on the belief that the freedom to think as you will and speak as you think are essential to democracy. Only by exercising those rights can you ensure their continued existence.”

        Unfortunately, she never got to say them.
        Contact David Wells at 768-8310; fax: 768-8610; e-mail: dwells@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Wells.

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