The Palestine Solidarity Movement is holding its annual conference at Duke this Friday to Sunday, which means that all hell will be breaking loose momentarily. PSM supporters and critics are flying in to yell at each other from all over the world, including – of all people – Debbie Schlussel, the poor woman’s Ann Coulter, who is introducing Daniel Pipes at an event Thursday night. There’s a credibility enhancer.

In all seriousness, I oppose many of the ideas I’ve seen associated with PSM, but Duke did the right thing by deciding to let the conference go forward. Academic freedom is precious; the answer to bad speech is more speech, not censorship.

And unfortunately, all the nonsense threatens to obscure just how serious the issue is. A Jewish student group is currently sponsoring a visit to campus by Bus 19, a powerful and moving traveling exhibit of an Israeli bus that was blown up by a suicide bomber. Then tonight, I found out that one of my PhD classmates in political science at Duke had a friend die on that bus. I’d encourage everyone in the Raleigh-Durham area who has a chance to stop by and see it.