Three weeks after Columbia University hosted a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hofstra is hosting a less known but just as controversial figure.
Lynne Stewart will deliver the final talk of Hofstra Law School’s legal ethics conference “Lawyering at the Edge,” which starts Sunday, Oct. 14 and runs through Tuesday, Oct. 16.
Stewart’s name may not ring any bells for most students on campus, but maybe they are at least remotely familiar with her former client, Omar Abdel Rahman. Abdel Rahman, known as the Blind Sheikh, is serving a life sentence for planning terrorist attacks against New York City landmarks.
Stewart defended Abdel Rahman in court, but that is not why many find her so atrocious. Everyone is entitled to a trial and a competent defense, and she was not wrong to be his attorney. She was disbarred and was given a prison sentence for passing messages from the Blind Sheikh to the press in June 2000. Once public, the messages, which endorsed a return to violence, were able to reach Abdel Rahman’s followers in al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, a terrorist organization.
She was convicted of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists and defrauding the U.S. government.
Her sentence is on appeal, which is the only reason she is free to deliver inflammatory speeches instead of incarcerated.
Hofstra’s invitation of Stewart has received national ire. On Oct. 9, the New York Daily News wrote an editorial scolding Hofstra Law School and suggesting it should “know better.”
Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel argued on “Hannity and Colmes,” “She can say whatever she wants with a bullhorn, but we don’t have to give her a prestigious platform.”
While the knee-jerk reaction of journalists is that freedom of speech applies across the board, eventually a line must be drawn. How horrible does someone need to be, and what heinous acts must they commit, before it is okay to say that they should not be put behind a podium and given a microphone?
While Stewart is a great example to students aspiring to be lawyers of what not to do, she does not need to be present on campus for such a case study. Her actions could easily be examined when she is sitting in prison, where she will ultimately end up after her appeal is unsuccessful.