I’m in Atlanta, heading back home today after a fantastic and fascinating visit to Emory University. The College Republicans invited me to speak last night on the “Girls Gone Wild” culture, a subject which I first addressed last summer and continue to cover. The event, sponsored by the Young Americans for Freedom, was well-attended and well-received by about 100-150 people. The kids I met were among the brightest and most energetic I’ve met in my campus travels.

Now, here’s the intriguing part. Leftists on campus (including the Emory Vegans, the Emory Libertarians, the “Revolutionary Knitters,” and something called “The Virtual Ticklefight”) were rallied by the Young Democrats to protest my visit because of their opposition to my “racist” views. The student newspaper published a flabbergasting piece from a student named Ling Guo that decried my mere presence on campus and criticized Asian-Americans for not raising more of a ruckus about my visit. The piece was titled “An oblivious community: Why is offensive speech OK?”

Before I delivered my GGW speech, I asked if Ling Guo was in the audience (surprise, he/she wasn’t) and briefly addressed the irony of these liberal students questioning tolerance for “offensive speech.” I then raised the fact that the Young Democrats on campus had invited one of my most prominent critics, Greg Robinson, to “rebut” my latest book’s arguments without bothering to invite me to join in a debate. They scheduled an event with Robinson at the last minute, which was to immediately follow my speech. According to the student newspaper, Robinson was sponsored by the Young Democrats to come and speak; the Southeast Chapter of the Japanese-American Citizens League helped organize his visit. Flyers were distributed on campus that read:

Want to know the TRUTH about WWII Japanese Incarceration Camps? Young Dems of Emory bring you the author of By Order of the President. Come see University of Quebec Professor Glenn (sic) Robinson debunk Michelle Malkin’s revisionist history…immediately following Malkin’s speech or 9:00, whichever is first

What a ridiculous and gutlessly underhanded stunt. During the speech, students noticed Robinson darting in and out of the ballroom. After my event, Robinson was in the back of the room kibbitzing with a Japanese American man who had come in protest and who had politely asked me a few questions about the book. I walked back and introduced myself to Robinson, and asked why he didn’t think to let me know of his visit or suggest to his sponsors that we debate. It would have been the fair and intellectually honest thing to do (and as a leader of the so-called Historians Committee for Fairness, Robinson ought to know something about fairness). Also, although we had never met in person, it’s not like we were total strangers (see the extensive debate from last summer here, here , here, and here).

Robinson was evasive about the circumstances surrounding his visit. Perhaps belatedly realizing how embarrassing the situation was, the Young Democrats agreed to change the format of their event and invited me at the last minute to join Robinson on stage for a back-and-forth.

The event was sparsely attended. Excluding the large group of College Republicans who came to listen and some off-campus Japanese American visitors, there were probably no more than 15 in the audience. Fortunately, both my event and the impromptu debate with Robinson were taped and the CRs plan to put both videos on their site .

Robinson repeated a plethora of errors he made in our initial debate and had the nerve to suggest (as his tag-team partner Eric Muller had earlier suggested) that it was beyond the realm of possibility for a pregnant woman with a day job to take a year to research and write a book challenging the conventional wisdom about WWII history–and more importantly, to apply the analysis to the current War on Terror (original analysis on which Robinson was largely silent).

Such intellectual snobbery is par for the course among my critics. Even as he accused me of “lifting” arguments from the late national security expert David Lowman about the so-called MAGIC cables (a baseless charge he had earlier backed away from), Robinson himself regurgitated the well-worn criticism of MAGIC made by internment scholar Peter Irons, activist Jack Herzig, and lawyer Angus MacBeth. Nor was Robinson forthcoming about his own book’s failure to address MAGIC–he devoted a scant two sentences (plus one brief footnote) to their existence and completely ignored the intelligence memos from the FBI, Army Military Intelligence Division, and Office of Naval Intelligence supporting the military necessity rationale for FDR’s homeland security policies.

I encourage those interested to view the debate when it’s posted. I’ll put up a link as soon as it’s available.

Thanks again to the Emory College Republicans for hosting me, and for all who turned out at both events.

Correction, February 5, 2005: The Emory Libertarians were not among those protesting my appearance.

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