"It has come to the editor's attention that the Herald-Leader neglected to cover the Civil Rights Movement," read a clarification in a Sunday edition of The Lexington Kentucky Herald-Leader earlier this summer. "We regret the omission."It turns out that the Herald-Leader was so afraid of offending the majority of its readership with such radical ideas-as many considered them to be at the time-as equal rights that the newspaper provided brief and unbalanced coverage of the movement and constantly ignored letters from members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and their supporters.

This grave incident in the history of the Herald-Leader demonstrates the constant struggle with censorship that media organizations, including the Justice, face every day. The question for the Justice often becomes: Do we allow every community member to use the newspaper as his voice or silence him, whether in disagreement or for the sake of calm in the community?

Some would answer that with the cry of the anti-war protestors, "dissent is patriotic too," or "even the minority deserves a chance to be heard." Over the last several years, however, it has become increasingly clear that the most vocal Brandeisians-often students most averse to being offended-are increasingly comfortable and content to omit the views of anyone with whom they disagree or anyone who "offends" them.

All too often, a reason for censoring someone in the Justice has been that he is offensive-politically, racially, religiously or otherwise. Whether it's views on affirmative action, gay rights, appropriate language use or many other sensitive topics, if the vocal, moral leaders (and I am not necessarily referring to the religious folks here) of the campus get offended then it is time to start the drive-out-of-town-the-offender-and-punish-the-leader-of-the-organization-that-allowed-him-to-speak campaign.

The debate, which follows so-called offensive material, should never be about whether the speaker should be punished or silenced, but rather about the actual content and its merit. Unfortunately, and far too often, at Brandeis and in the United States, such debate does not take place. Instead people wage campaigns to silence the criticism rather than address it.

A recent national example of someone being hushed for saying something "offensive" is when comedian Bill Maher, currently hosting HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, was kicked off his ABC show, Politically Incorrect in 2001, for calling the United States cowardly in the way it was fighting the war on terror.

A few vocal viewers of Maher's show were offended at his rhetoric and campaigned to silence his voice, instead of engaging him in a discussion on the issue.

Such an atmosphere of shutting people up deters them from addressing important topics. For example, speaking out against the war in Iraq will get someone accused of not supporting the troops or being "un-American," and speaking out against affirmative action will get someone accused of being racist or "anti-social justice."

It is imperative that Brandeis does not foster this atmosphere. Instead, we should be a liberal campus in the true sense of the word-one where any opinion presented by a community member, no matter how offensive or hurtful, is not suppressed, but addressed.

If it was wrong for the Patriot-Leader to not print the views of civil rights activists and for ABC to silence Bill Maher, then-get this-it was wrong for the Justice to stop printing the views of Dan Passner '06 after the "Dusty Baker" incident and it was wrong for WBRS to not allow the hosts of the Men's Room show to air their brand of humor. Right?

I can see certain people's eyes turn red immediately after reading that sentence. I can see the war drums beating to get me kicked off the Justice for saying that. After all, how can I support these racists? How can I say their voices-ones of indecency and provocation-are equal to those of people to whom we now refer as heroes (and who truly are) from the civil rights movement? How can I support their right to speak in the Justice?

I can't, at least not according to the same rationale. While the suppression of opinions, with unpopular or offensive content, is wrong and detrimental to society, the suppression of slander or bad words, with no valid point, is just protocol. Using a racial slur does not impregnate an article with meaningful content that could be pondered, argued, and, only then, dismissed. It is an ineffective gesture to induce outrage and little else. Even the most ludicrous opinion, that may in the end prove just as ineffective as a slur, may be just valid and interesting enough to entertain.

But the "hoopla," to borrow a phrase, over Passner and WBRS is not equally warranted. After all, was the WBRS comment, though tactless and hurtful, just an opinion on the sexual merit of Asian women? Even if it was, the distasteful word choice was the offensive element, and not the meager content. Of course, the dirty words were quite conducive to what the DJs perceived as humor. And although offensive humor has far less potential for importance than an offensive opinion, it lies precariously in the high-risk arena of entertainment, not hate-speech. After all, to some, Janet Jackson's nipple was offensive.

So, which Editor-Almighty has the right to separate the opinions from the useless bad words? None-at least theoretically. For an editor with biases and pressure to please, the distinction between racism and marginalized political commentary may be too murky to make. So just to be safe, perhaps we should humor voices with even the slightest validity. And in a judgment-free world, where the Justice would be long enough to fit every stupid column any student wanted to write (hey, they found room for me), even racist dribble would have a home.