Discussing a Columbia University speaking event at which Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist and member Marvin Stewart were forced from the podium by student groups protesting the Minutemen's appearance on campus, Newsradio 850 KOA host Mike Rosen, on October 10, read from an Investor's Business Daily editorial that selectively quoted a statement released by Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger. The editorial, as Rosen read it, falsely suggested that Bollinger's statement condoned the Minutemen being forced from the stage. In fact, a portion of Bollinger's statement that was not included either in the editorial or in Rosen's broadcast denounced the disruption as “one of the most serious breaches of academic faith that can occur in a university such as ours.”

The Columbia University College Republicans invited members of the Minuteman Project, a group of citizens that voluntarily patrol the U.S.-Mexico border, to speak on October 4 in Columbia's Roone auditorium. The Minuteman Project's website warns that the United States is being “devoured and plundered by the menace of tens of millions of invading illegal aliens.”

Rosen read, almost in its entirety, an October 5 New York Sun (subscription required) report by Eliana Johnson on the incident at Columbia, followed by the October 10 editorial in Investor's Business Daily. As read by Rosen, the editorial stated in part: “In a post-event statement, Columbia's president said he was 'justifiably proud of the traditions here of intellectual inquiry and vigorous debate.' ”

However, the full context of Bollinger's remarks makes it clear that he was not suggesting he was “justifiably proud” of the disruption of the Minutemen's presentation.

From Bollinger's statement, issued on October 6, two days after the incident involving the Minuteman Project:

Columbia University has always been, and will always be, a place where students and faculty engage directly with important public issues. We are justifiably proud of the traditions here of intellectual inquiry and vigorous debate. The disruption on Wednesday night that resulted in the termination of an event organized by the Columbia College Republicans in Lerner Hall represents, in my judgment, one of the most serious breaches of academic faith that can occur in a university such as ours.

The editorial also contrasted the Minutemen's appearance at Columbia with “Venezuelan thug” Hugo Chavez's speech at another Manhattan campus, Cooper Union College, saying that Chavez's speech “compared the administration's policies to those of Nazi Germany, accused the U.S. of genocide in Iraq and suggested that Bush be tried for war crimes. His comments on Iraq prompted a standing ovation from professors and students alike.” When Rosen read the editorial on the air he omitted the words “on Iraq,” giving the impression that the standing ovation came in response to all of Chavez's speech.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted (here and here), Rosen previously has relied on misinformation from the Investor's Business Daily's editorial pages.

From the October 10 broadcast of The Mike Rosen Show on Newsradio 850 KOA:

ROSEN: In the Investor's Business Daily house editorial today on this topic, under the headline “Animal House,” they note that Venezuelan head Hugo Chavez, the autocratic thug who runs Venezuela, was invited to speak at Cooper Union College in Manhattan after his United Nations speech where he called President Bush “El Diablo.” He, of course, gave that speech without any interruption, without any protesters shouting him down. And in that speech at Cooper Union College in Manhattan, he compared the administration's policies to those of Nazi Germany, accused the U.S. of genocide in Iraq, and suggested that Bush be tried for war crimes. His comments prompted a standing ovation from professors and students alike.

Contrast that with the reception that the Minutemen spokesman got at Columbia University.

Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, had been invited by the Columbia College Republicans to speak about border security, illegal immigration and his group's successful effort to reduce illegal entry into the United States.

Moments into his presentation, two students from the International Socialist Organization jumped onstage to unfurl the banner reading “No one is illegal!”

It was fundamentally a part of free speech, one protester told the Columbia Daily Spectator. The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration.

So this is his perverted notion, this demonstrator, this protester's notion of free speech. It's preventing other people from speaking freely, and preventing those in the audience who wanted to hear those speakers say what they had to say, preventing them from hearing what the speakers wanted to say. And, instead, trumping their free-speech rights with their own dissent -- the protesters' dissent -- and that's what they regard as free speech, because they get to determine what speech is legitimate and what positions are legitimate and what positions aren't.

The mob wasn't confronted by campus security, no one was arrested. In a post-event statement, Columbia's president said he was, quote, justifiably proud of the traditions here of intellectual inquiry and vigorous debate, unquote.

That's what we call vigorous debate: shouting down your opponents and driving them from the stage.