A frog in his throat.

Byline: The Register-Guard

This just in from the Things We Wish We'd Said Depart- ment:

In response to Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly's charge that University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer is "a disgrace" and "a coward who needs to be fired," Frohnmayer shot back, "Being called names by him is like being called ugly by a frog."

The only problem with using the bombastic O'Reilly and a frog in the same simile is the disservice it does to a defenseless amphibian's reputation. Be that as it may, we come not to bury O'Reilly, but to praise Frohnmayer for his appropriately balanced effort to condemn deliberately offensive cartoons published in a campus newspaper while trying to help the public understand the important free speech principles involved in the debate.

Taking a page from the Jeffersonian bible on free speech, Frohnmayer said, "The best response to offensive speech often is more speech." He quickly added, "I am strongly opposed to speech that makes individuals feel that they or their beliefs are unwelcome or belittled."

The Insurgent is not a university publication, nor is it university supported, but it does receive student incidental fees - $18,349 for this school year. Those student fees have been mischaracterized by critics, including O'Reilly.

Let's be clear: The Insurgent should never have published the utterly reprehensible cartoons debasing Jesus. One cartoon depicted Jesus on the cross with an erection. Another showed a sexually aroused Jesus kissing a man. The decision to run a dozen gratuitously offensive drawings and two related Christian-bashing opinion columns was the product of deplorable insensitivity and stunning immaturity.

But the U.S. Supreme Court also has spoken with clarity on the issue of the rights of publications and organizations funded with student fees. In a landmark, unanimous decision in March 2000, the high court upheld the ability of mandatory student fees to fund student services and activities. The court stipulated that these fees must be allocated without regard to an organization's viewpoint in order to protect the First Amendment rights of students.

There is an inescapable irony in the Christian outrage provoked by The Insurgent's cartoons and the international uproar over the caricatures of the prophet Muhammad that swept the Muslim world last February.

During the Muslim riots, critics never missed an opportunity to point out that such violence was virtually unthinkable in the Christian world, given Western traditions of religious pluralism and freedom of expression.

But the Muslim hysteria was designed to produce the same result as the pressure being applied to Frohnmayer by angry Christians: complete suppression of the offensive speech.

Frohnmayer is clearly appalled by The Insurgent's tasteless shenanigans, but he also understands that The Insurgent's shoddy wares aren't selling in the UO's marketplace of ideas. Protecting that marketplace from the myriad forces that seek to limit its inventory is one of a university president's most important jobs.