Bill Maher, who hosts a political comedy show every Friday on HBO, has spent his career arguing against institutionalized religions.
He is a polarizing champion of liberal values and has committed to speak at UC Berkeley’s December commencement ceremony.
But over the last few weeks he has come under fire for his comments about Islam after an argument with Ben Affleck on his show brought national attention to his views on Islam. This culminated last week when The Californians, the campus leadership group that invites keynote speakers, voted to repeal his invitation to the ceremony . Despite student opposition, the university administration and chancellor said that Maher will still be welcomed to speak at the ceremony.
The university and Maher defended their decision on the grounds of free speech and encouraging dissenting viewpoints, but that really misses the point. Encouraging disagreement is one thing, but one of the liberal values Maher seems to misunderstand is tolerance and respect for others.
This isn’t an issue of free speech as much as it is drawing a distinction between respectful, intellectual disagreement and speech that perpetuates xenophobia and discrimination against a population of about 1.6 billion people, as of 2012.
On the episode of his show that fueled many of the Berkeley protests, Maher said, “(Islam is) the only religion that acts like the mafia.” One of Maher’s favorite “facts” about Muslims, which he referenced again on Friday’s show, is that if you leave the religion in most of the Muslim world you will be killed. But according to a 2013 study, of all 192 states in the world, only 13 predominantly Muslim countries have execution as a penalty for atheism.
So, yes, Maher is correct that there are countries with predominantly Muslim populations and governments that commit awful acts against their people, but his views are so simplistic that they become offensive. He ends up categorizing all people who identify as Muslim under the same umbrella. He wants people to be open to opposing viewpoints, but his views on Islam cross the line from healthy disagreement to stereotyping.
On Friday’s show, Maher said his only reservation was that his presence could make the day more about him than the students. But if that’s the case then he should already have enough reason to back out. It would only take a little critical self-awareness to recognize how his views could be offensive to graduating students, but he continues to stand on his soapbox and shout that all he does is tell facts.
It’s appropriate to criticize countries and political institutions that are majority Muslim and commit awful crimes against their people. But claiming as Maher did Friday that “all I’ve ever done was basically read facts” shows an arrogance that doesn’t have a place at a university commencement speech. Claiming an entire religion acts like the mafia isn’t a fact, it’s a harmful way of thinking about a huge population of people.
Maher is hiding behind the guise of free speech – he even alluded to the commencement address as time to recognize the 50th anniversary of free speech protests at Berkeley. But the freedom to disagree comes with a responsibility to do so in an intelligent, respectful way. Defending Maher’s right to address students in this platform runs directly counter to those goals.