Anti-reparation movement begins.

Negative ad from neo-conservative hits college newspapers

African American students faced an alarming assault on campuses across the country recently, when an anti-reparations advertisement was sent to more than 20 college newspapers. Among the few newspapers that ran the advertisement were Brown University and the University of California at Berkeley.

The headline on the advertisement, which ran at the end of February and at the beginning of March, was: "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks Is a Bad Idea for Blacks--and Racist Too." Many African Americans, both on the campuses and off, were offended by a number of flashpoint statements made in the ad, which was placed by David Horowitz, whose writing has appeared in Salon magazine. Horowitz describes himself as a neo-conservative. He heads the Center for the Study of Popular Culture. a conservative think tank.

Some of the statements in the ad argue that blacks should be grateful to the United States for their standard of living; welfare has been reparations for blacks; blacks should be grateful for their freedom; and if not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves.

"We pay taxes just like everyone else, and saying we have a special debt is offensive and malicious. He needs to be put back in his place," says Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League. Price has spoken out against the advertisement and Horowitz in the national media, and debated Horowitz on the issue on MSNBC cable.

Brown's administration reacted to the ad with a number of race and freedom of speech forums. Students on Brown's campus formed a multiracial third world coalition against the advertisement, and asked the college paper for space to place an advertisement correcting the inaccuracies they saw in Horowitz's advertisement. Amanda Calderon, a member of the coalition, said, "They refused and they were rude, and the advertisement created an unsafe environment for many students."

The editor of the Berkeley college newspaper, Daniel Hernandez, chose to apologize for the advertisement and was criticized in editorials by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal on freedom of speech grounds.

Berkeley Assistant Chancellor John Cummins said the Horowitz advertisement and a campus appearance by him inflamed the issue, but he said Berkeley has a history of disagreeable speakers voicing their opinions, including David Irving, a writer who denies the Holocaust occurred. "It was simply a part of the campus's intellectual atmosphere," he said.