After three weeks of preparation, research and numerous rewrites,
Gerald Molen –a motivational speaker,
former U.S. Marine, and Oscar-winning film producer – drove ninety minutes from
his home to Ronan High School in
Montana last month to
deliver a graduation speech. He was shocked upon his arrival to find that Principal Tom Stack had decided to disinvite him and cancel the speech. He
was further stunned to learn the reason that he wouldn’t be allowed to address
the students – it was because he is “a right-wing conservative.”
Molen has an
impressive 25-year Hollywood résumé. He is the producer of such films as
Rain Man, Days of Thunder, Stephen Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, the first two Jurassic
Park films, Twister, and Minority Report. He has spoken at dozens of schools but doesn’t
accept a fee. When one is offered, he asks that it be donated to the Shoah
Foundation, the nonprofit organization founded by Spielberg and dedicated to
Holocaust remembrance.
When speaking to
students, Molen usually invokes the name of Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist credited with saving
1,100 Jews during the Holocaust and the subject of the Oscar-winning 1993 film
that Molen and Spielberg co-produced. He points to Schindler as an example of
what courageous individuals can accomplish, and Molen had planned to do so
again in his presentation at Ronan High School.
Since my career had centered around
the motion picture industry, I had set out to challenge them with the thought
that they might each write their own movie script. A script that would have
them as the writer, director, producer and star... Silly idea? Maybe. But of
course we’ll never know.
We’ll never know
because, even though his message to the students wasn’t overtly political,
Gerald Molen is a conservative, and that alone is enough to incite censorship
from the intolerant left. Apparently Principal Stack had received calls from some
concerned parents who “didn’t want the kids exposed to that, despite not knowing
what my message would be,” said Molen.
In a piece written
by Molen himself and published in a Montana newspaper, The Daily Inter Lake, he reported that the principal
apologized for the inconvenience of
being canceled and said the decision to cancel was his alone… No, he didn’t ask
me of the content. No, he didn’t ask to read the speech for any clarification
as to content. No, he would not tell me who the complaining party or parties
were, nor would he give me any further explanation.
The principal could have simply ignored the unknown number
of complaints and allowed Molen to proceed. After all, schools regularly now
ignore parents who complain about the rejection
of patriotic songs, the removal of the American flag, and similar assaults
on pro-American culture. At the very least, Stack could have queried Molen
about any political content of his presentation, and then reassured the
complainants that they nothing to worry about (which would still have constituted
caving in to them). In the absence of any more explanation from Principal Stack
(and neither he nor Ronan School
District representatives have commented publicly about the incident), one
has to assume that since he took full responsibility for cancelling Molen’s appearance,
he must agree with the complainants – if indeed there were any. Whatever the
backstory, a school cancelled an apolitical speech solely because the speaker
is conservative.
Some Ronan
citizens are demanding answers. “I’m pissed off,” said school volunteer Chuck Lewis. “Why would a school dishonor a man who served his
country?” Lewis, a former Marine like Molen, said, “They should have never
censored him like that.” Molen wrote:
I served three years in the Marine
Corps so that others might stand before their peers or even a group of
students, but never did I think my voice would be stilled by some mysterious
caller(s) on the notion that I might say something they “thought” would not be
in the students’ best interests…
My intent was to inspire and motivate
those looking for an encouraging word and message of hope beyond the walls of
the institution they were leaving to the next chapter in their young lives. It
spoke to the contributions and greatness of their teachers, administrators,
parents and peers... But I guess I was wrong about teachers and/or school
administrators.
He certainly was. And though his personal story is one of more overt censorship, there is a clear scarcity
of conservative speakers for student bodies. A recent study by the Young America’s
Foundation noted that the overwhelming majority of college
commencement speeches were given by liberals – by a ratio of better than seven-to-one. Of
the top 100 universities in the latest U.S. News rankings, 71 featured speakers
from the left while only ten hosted conservatives. And of the top 35 schools,
only one featured a conservative
speaker. While no comparable study apparently exists for the political
orientation of speakers at high school
commencements, it’s difficult to imagine that the numbers are very different.
Still incensed about the cancellation, Molen asserted that
in America, people have the right to listen to differing points of view. “I
mistakenly thought that was part of an education. Evidently not in certain
jurisdictions”:
Instead [the Ronan students] were
indoctrinated with a sense of fear and mistrust that a fellow Montanan just
might stand before them and say something some official school administrator
deemed “possibly harmful.”
He closed his Daily
Inter Lake piece by asking, “In America today, are our children taught or
indoctrinated? Is there censorship? I’ll let the reader decide. Me? I now have
the answer.” In an
interview at Big Hollywood, Molen
said, “This is not something that
should be allowed to happen. I hope whatever notoriety comes out of this, that
it will wake people up.”