ISLAND VOICES
Hawai'i: fine example of open-mindedness
By David E. Stannard
Tonight, when controversial professor Ward Churchill speaks at the University of Hawai'i, the people of the islands will be sending the rest of the country an important message about democracy and political courage.
Associated Press library photo
It won't be the first time.
University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill: part of what the "profound national commitment to debate on public issues should be."
In 1932 a New York socialite, along with her son-in-law and two sailors, murdered a young native Hawaiian man and were caught red-handed. Two of the murderers openly admitted that they had done it. Yet, in what became known as the Massie Case, a hysterical and race-obsessed national media insisted on the release of the killers. More than a hundred U.S. congressmen agreed, promising to end internal self-government for Hawai'i unless their demand was met.
The 12 jurors deciding the case came from most of the islands' races and from every social class. A negative vote by any one of them would have blocked a conviction. Despite threats ranging from personal violence to the loss of their jobs — in addition to the possible imposition of martial law — the jurors all voted guilty.
As one of them, Theodore Char, later explained:
"Law and order must prevail . . . no other verdict was possible."
A decade later, on the West Coast, more than 100,000 men, women and children of Japanese descent were herded into internment camps. Again, hysteria swept the nation. But not in Hawai'i. Here, people of all ancestries spoke out against wartime internment.
In the end less than 1 percent of Hawai'i's Japanese were confined.
Ten years after that, McCarthyism was in the air. In every state, people accused of being communists lost their jobs, and often their families and sometimes their lives, as the political witch-hunt expanded. Hawai'i, though still a territory, would not go untouched.
But when six men and one woman were tried on trumped-up charges of subversion, they were not left to fend for themselves. On the contrary, among the dozens who testified on their behalf were a local federal judge and the 80-year-old mayor of Honolulu, Johnny Wilson.
Years later, the state Legislature officially acknowledged the injustice that one of the defendants and his wife had suffered and awarded them compensation of more than a quarter-million dollars.
Of course, in these and other cases, there were people on the opposite side. The late business tycoon Walter Dillingham represented their opinion forcefully. During the Japanese internment debate, he dismissed talk regarding "the rights of American citizens" as so much "hooey that nobody cares a damn about."
But most people did care.
In the years since statehood there have been numerous other attacks on those rights that Dillingham mocked. At UH alone, in 1967-68 and again in 1990-91, two controversial professors openly were threatened with dismissal for publicly speaking their minds. In the end, however, after campus demonstrations and enormous attention in the press, both professors retained their positions, while the university presidents who had pursued them resigned and left town.
And now there is Ward Churchill. Refereeing a high-profile battle over free speech and academic freedom can be a frustrating task for a university president. This is especially true during wartime, when the nation's patriotic fever is high and when political disagreements easily evolve into personal vilification and physical threat. But the great presidents have risen to the challenge.
In contrast with some of his current peers on the mainland, UH President David McClain's ringing endorsement of Professor Churchill's right to speak "despite his strong disagreement with the message" is in keeping with the best traditions of the American university.
The audience listening to Professor Churchill tonight —and listening as well to those asking questions afterward — are likely to hear a debate that is "uninhibited, robust, and wide-open . . . vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp."
After all, those are the words the United States Supreme Court once used to describe what America's "profound national commitment to debate on public issues should be."
The case in question was the groundbreaking New York Times v. Sullivan controversy of 1964. And the justices' ruling was unanimous in favor of free speech.
The people of Hawai'i are in very good company.
University of Hawai'i professor David E. Stannard's new book, "Honor Killing: How the Infamous 'Massie Affair' Transformed Hawai'i," will be published next month.
