Sorry, by then it's too late. We have to defend freedom of speech and expression much earlier than arrest.

Malik is not wrong to point out a double standard. There surely is one. But freedom of speech is not the issue. Brandeis is not obligated to bestow an honorary degree on anyone. In reversing its decision, the university has not violated Ayaan Hirsi Ali's freedom of speech any more than that of Frazier Glenn Miller's, the white supremacist killer in Kansas, whom Brandeis has also neglected to recognize with an honorary degree.

PS Freedom of religion, which is likewise enshrined in the first amendment, also applies to government. It is not unconstitutional to disparage someone's religion.

Here is her article from your link:

"LONDON — The defense of free speech often hides a multitude of sins. Since Brandeis University withdrew an honor it had intended to bestow on the author and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, many have flocked to her defense in the name of free expression — no matter how offensive. But implicitly they are suggesting that Islam and Muslims are worthy targets of Ms. Hirsi Ali’s scorn. And their preciousness about the right to offend won’t be credible until they advocate extending it beyond Islamophobes — to racists, anti-Semites and homophobes, too.

PS: This is pretty much all you have to read. Her target are those who came to Ali's defense once Brandeis withdraw the invitation. She implies that Ali's words are "offensive" and yet these people, whom she'll later call absolutists, still defend her. But their claim only to be interested in free speech is "precious" and won't be credible until they ALSO champion other very offensive types. Nowhere in the first paragraph does she expect them to do this (hence hypocrisy), and she is clearly not arguing that these other people should be allowed to speak.

Brandeis stated that her planned address didn’t share the “university’s core values” and rescinded an honorary degree; the university’s volte face may have been clumsy, but it wasn’t censorship. In the eyes of Ms. Hirsi Ali’s supporters, however, Brandeis was “kowtowing to the Muslim hordes” and giving in to the pressure of Arab money.

PS: Again, more or less supportive of Brandeis's decision, however "clumsy," but her target is clearly her hypocritical followers.

It’s not entirely unreasonable that a liberal arts institution would view this sort of language as discordant with its values. After all, academic institutions are cultural battlegrounds, and they set the tone for contemporary discourse. But the accusations leveled at Brandeis show the perils of not sticking entirely to free speech absolutism.

PS: Once again, she's supportive, doesn't find unreasonable, Brandeis's decision to, in your words, make a free speech exception--but notes the "perils of not sticking entirely to free speech absolutism," her principal charge against her target, i.e., Ali's allies.

The university appeared not to have done basic research on Ms. Hirsi Ali’s rhetoric and how strong a reaction she often provokes. She skillfully rebranded the incident as an attack on free speech and an attempt to silence her. This summoned forth a panoply of voices coming to her defense; some went so far as to claim that she’d been metaphorically “honor killed.”

PS: Brandeis's real mistake according to Malik is not having done their research. Had they done so, they would've discovered the disconnect between Ali and their liberal values.

Couching Ms. Hirsi Ali’s defense in the derision of Islam is troubling — and it exposes how selective champions of free speech can be. In a rather hysterical response in The Daily Beast, James Kirchick peppered his defense of Ms. Hirsi Ali with references to Muslim detractors as one step away from terrorists, and drew a tenuous line between not granting someone an award and endorsing murder. He wrote that “forcing a university to rescind its honoring of an acclaimed critic of Islam exists on a censorious continuum that ends with the dismal fate of individuals like Theo van Gogh.” In Mr. Kirchick’s world, petitions are fatwas, and it’s only a matter of time before leafy university campuses are littered with the corpses of academic jihad’s victims.

PS: Again, her critique is NOT that there was insufficient free speech going on here. Her target is the hypocrisy of Ali's supporters. She's critiquing those who critiqued Brandeis's invitation by petitioning the university to withdraw its invitation. IOW, she supports that petition and derides Kirchick's characterization of the petition as a "fatwa."

Hysterics aside, broad generalizations like this suggest that there is no Muslim mainstream made up of people who have the right to object to, and fear, language that stigmatizes them; there are only terrorists and their victims. The implication is that because some Muslims have a record of violence toward critics and apostates, that all Muslims have it coming to them. It’s an argument that boils down not to, “because of freedom of speech” but “because they deserve it.”

PS: She thinks there IS a Muslim mainstream and they DO have a right to fear and object to language (read: free speech) that stigmatizes them, etc., in the way that Alis's does. This is not an argument that segues nicely into inviting homophobes and anti-Semites to speak. It's an argument that argues why gays and Jews might justly object and try to put a stop to the phobes being given a platform for their "ideas."

Swapping races and religions to gauge if the response to a particular incident would have been different is an imperfect counterfactual game, but in this instance it is instructive. Had Ms. Hirsi Ali been a widely acknowledged homophobe, or white supremacist, would free speech supporters have rushed so readily to their lecterns to defend her? Probably not, which is why the right to offend should be extended to all. Otherwise, our personal preferences will always dictate that there be exceptions.

PS: This is where she takes a turn toward your argument (the underlined phrase). However, given what she's said thus far, it is a false move. In what way does allowing a homophobe to speak ease the burden of hate speech directed against Muslims--an issue that clear has clearly bothered her up to now? Since the West is unlikely to give up its hatred of Muslims, the least it can do is tolerate hatred of other groups. Ending hypocrisy is her non solution solution. See below...

Europe, and Britain in particular, are less covetous of the principles embodied in the American Constitution’s First Amendment. And their experiences in recent years demonstrate the dangers of a more limited allowance of expression, and how going down this slippery slope always ends in inconsistency and the selective justification of offensive speech based on its target and the national mood.

Earlier this year, a prospective British parliamentary candidate, who happened to be a Muslim, tweeted a cartoon of Jesus and Mohammed, part of “Jesus and Mo,” an irreverent series depicting the two religious figures in everyday situations. Some Muslims saw this as deliberately provocative and there was a backlash, including death threats. When mainstream British media outlets such as the BBC did not show the cartoon, the British press branded them cowards, traitors and free-speech equivocators.

It is clearly far more palatable, even popular, to muscularly stand up for the right to offend Muslims than it is to back those who offend any other minority in Europe today. Indeed, when the notorious American Islamophobe Pamela Geller was banned from Britain on account of her vitriol toward Muslims, her exclusion was met with a chorus of objections. This selective attitude toward freedom of speech allows such disparities to become entrenched.

PS: Her concern is Islamophobia. Her solution, which is a non-solution, is an end to hypocrisy by allowing other hatreds to bloom. If her concern were real free speech, then she wouldn't be bothered by people bashing Islam. After all, all the bashers are doing is engaging in free speech about an issue of concern to them. No one's concerned about all issues, all groups. Her concern is what she regards as undue criticism of Islam. Unfortunately, her solution is to allow 1000 hatreds to bloom so that, even if we're getting a good hate on, at least we won't be hypocrites.

But notice, nowhere is she arguing for homophobie or anti-Semitism except that allowing or encouraging these expressions will at least end the hypocrisy. At Muslims won't feel so all alone in the hatred directed toward them.

The reaction to the Brandeis affair is a troubling harbinger. It suggests that America, like Europe, might also begin to pick and choose who deserves to be protected from offensive speech. Once that door is open, the Trojan horse of libertarianism will smuggle in intolerance.

PS: Here, the problem with her non-solution solution becomes clear in the pretzel-like shape it assumes. If we take her at her word, she's concerned with intolerance. And yet her suggestion for avoiding this intolerance would appear to be to allow even more intolerance against more groups to blossom. Huh? This is sort of a sad parody of the old adage: The solution to the problem of free speech is more free speech. Only her version is: The solution to Islamophobia is to give rein to homophobia, anti-Semitism and any other hatred that dare not speak its name. Aside from the very real problem that this doesn't work and is the opposite of what we, IMO, should do, it tramples over her initial concern as indicated pretty clearly in her opening five or so paragraphs: Islamophobia. But since she's reasonably enlightened, it's very hard to believe that she really wants to see a springtime for the phobias.

Those who fancy themselves defenders of free speech must be consistent in their absolutism, and stand up for offensive speech no matter who is the target.

PS: If Mohammad's ox is going to get gored (inevitably), then so must Moses's and Jesus's and Harvey Milk's...and anyone else's. It isn't that she's arguing for goring all these oxes; she's just saying that if Mohammad's ox is going to get gored, then everyone else's should, too. I suspect she hopes that if the world were forced to abandon its hypocrisy, and everyone's ox was getting gored, and people noticed how it felt, they'd leave the Muslim's alone for once.