When the GWU campus was papered with anti-Muslim flyers purporting to be the work of the campus conservative group, GWU president Steven Knapp was up in arms: "We do not condone, and we will not tolerate, the dissemination of fliers or other documents that vilify any religious, ethnic, or racial group," he said in a release. The insinuation of forthcoming punishment was clear.

Knapp is tooting the same horn this week in response to swastikas that have appeared on the door of a Jewish student: "There is no place for such things at this or any other university," Knapp said in a press release. "We do not condone, and we will not tolerate, the posting of images or texts that vilify any religious, ethnic, or racial group."

My question is: How come some kinds of hateful speech won't be condoned at GWU, while others will? When it was found that the anti-Muslim flyers were not the work of the GW Young America's Foundation--which vociferously repudiated them--but were, rather transparently, the work of students wishing to smear that group, suddenly the flyers weren't hateful any more, and suddenly the vows to punish were dropped.

Message: it's just fine to frame campus conservatives as intolerant bigots; this is one group toward whom intolerance and bigotry are acceptable at GWU.

Yes, I know that YAF sponsored GWU's iteration of Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, and that this has enraged plenty of people. But there is a difference between legitimate, controversial speech--which by definition is often unwelcome--and the sort of fraudulent libel undertaken by those who posted the flyer under YAF's name. GWU is "investigating" the event, but there is no word yet about whether the students responsible will be sanctioned. Ironically, the grounds upon which punishment might be meted out is failure to get approval for posting the flyer. No free speech at GWU, and no viewpoint neutrality, any way you look at it.

UPDATE: A letter from the GWU YAF to Knapp notes that the GWU administration pressured YAF members to sign the equivalent of a loyalty oath to pre-emptively demonstrate their disapproval of anti-Muslim hate speech--and urges the University to stop behavior that issues from hostile assumptions about the motives and ethics of conservative students. Knapp's response ignores that part of the letter.