The Society for Professional Journalists is considering whether or not to remove notorious anti-Semite Helen Thomas’ name from the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award at its executive committee meeting this weekend. The SPJ’s magazine, Quill, has published pro and con letters on the subject and I wanted to draw attention to Lloyd Weston’s defense of keeping Thomas’ name attached to the award.

I read in the papers that my beloved alma mater, Wayne State University, has “retired” the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity in the Media award because of controversial remarks made by the award’s namesake. In reading some of these remarks – at the time they were made, and again today – I find that, in every case, she has done no more than express her opinion, in fact, regularly using phrases like “in my opinion” and “I think that…” With all due respect to Helen Thomas’ last professional job as an “opinion columnist” for Hearst Newspapers, I fail to see the controversy.

Frankly, even considering all the common infirmities affecting her in her 91st year, I find many of her recent remarks, about Israel and the Middle East, to be deplorable and without basis in fact.

However, the same First Amendment that protects my right to be a Jew and a Zionist in America, protects Helen Thomas’ right to express her opinion of Jews and Zionists, no matter what that opinion may be. And while I vehemently disagree with the opinions she has expressed about Jews and Zionists, I will defend, as long as I live, her right to express them.

For a guy who spent his career in newspapers, his understanding of the facts at issue and the role of the First Amendment are surprisingly misinformed.

There’s no debate over whether Thomas has the right to her bigoted views. No one’s calling for her to be forcibly returned to the Middle East (the land of her forbears) where she can try her luck as a quasi-Christian living among murderous Muslims. At issue is whether it’s a good idea for an organization that purports to uphold the journalistic ideals of reporting the truth without fear or favor to honor a woman who wants Jews to be shipped off to the countries where more than 6 million of their number were systematically murdered by people who held views not unlike her own.

In short, the crazy old aunt in the attic can say whatever she likes – the SPJ (and Wayne State University) are under no obligation to honor the woman.