Last week, historian Arthur Schlesinger spoke before an audience of 700 at Swarthmore College. His subject: what he sees as the Bush administration's hostility to public expressions of political dissent.

Schlesinger, 86, said he believed that more debate was needed before the United States commits American lives to fighting on foreign soil, and that public dissent is essential to democracy.

"Going to war does not abrogate our freedoms of conscience, speech and thought," the prize-winning author and former foreign-policy adviser told those who attended the first in a series of American history lectures Tuesday.

"We have no obligation to bow down before an imperial presidency," he said.

Schlesinger was referring to a speech that Attorney General John Ashcroft gave before the Senate Judiciary Committee in December 2001. Ashcroft lashed out at critics of the Bush administration's response to terrorism. The critics contended those actions undermined the U.S. Constitution. The actions in question included President Bush's decision to have military tribunals try aliens suspected of terrorism; the detention of hundreds of aliens at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without bringing formal charges; and the questioning of thousands of Middle Eastern men living in the United States.

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this," Ashcroft said. "Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends."

Schlesinger said what he called Ashbrook's attempt to "rally around the flag" was actually a move to discourage free speech.

"Presidents are never infallible," Schlesinger said, using humor to make his point. "They may even pick up a good idea or two from the dissent."

Students at Swarthmore can go down for "sexual innuendoes, comments or jokes; the persistent use of irrelevant references or remarks to a person's gender, sexuality or sexual orientation; sexist remarks about the target's clothing or body; expressions using sex stereotypes whether or not they were made about or directed to the grievant and whether or not intended to insult or degrade" (emphasis added). Swarthmore students can also be disciplined for "well intentioned but unwelcome remarks, when repeated, about one's personality or appearance might be interpreted as sexually suggestive," "Derisive, mocking, ridiculing, or jeering expression," and "Subjecting one to public shame that normally cause feelings of inferiority or loss of self-respect." In other words, if John Ashcroft were a Swarthmore student, he could conceivably file charges against Swarthmore for allowing Schlesinger to speak so critically and derisively of him.

Question: if an argument for free speech is made on a campus that does not itself enjoy free speech, is there anyone there to hear it? Only time will tell, I suppose. According to the Philly Inquirer, an audience member asked Schlesinger what he would advise young people to do to bring about change. He told them to go into politics. A good first campaign, if any Swarthmore students were so moved, would be to insist on free speech at their own school.

Thanks to Fred Ray, as ever, for the links.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

Loved the commentary on Swarthmore. I transferred there in 1993 as a junior in college from Duke and quickly realized that it was the wrong decision. The defining moment for me was when Phyllis Schlafly came to speak (sponsored by the Republican Club, consisting of 6 members). The whole campus was in a tizzy about it -- flyers posted on the trees all over campus calling her "anti-woman." My favorite poster, though, read, "We will not tolerate intolerance." Kind of summed up the Swarthmore experience. Funny thing was, I was a liberal til I went there and saw what a liberal world looked like in practice.Ý

I worked things so that I spent the spring semester in Rome with a study abroad program -- the best thing I ever did in college. Then I transferred back to Duke for my senior year. Hard to believe Duke was such a bastion of normalcy and reason!