Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren was invited to speak to about 500 students at University of California at Irvine on Feb. 8.
About 6 minutes into the presentation a number of protesters from the Muslim Student Union rose and began chanting, “MR. OREN! MASS MURDER IS NOT FREE SPEECH!” as well as allegedly yelling “Killers!” “How many Palestinians did you kill?”
Mr. Oren left the stage but eventually came back out and finished his presentation. The protesters were removed from the venue by security. 11 were arrested for disrupting a public proceeding and the students among them face university discipline.
There has been debate over whether the students who were engaging in what is being called a “heckler’s veto” should be punished. Were the students engaging in protected free speech which would preempt any type of discipline? Has the the line between free speech and the academic freedom needed to put on such presentations without disruption been blurred beyond recognition? In coming to any conclusion it is important to keep in mind that UC-Irvine is a State University. This was a University sponsored event. Both the Federal 1st Amendment and the California 1st Amendment would therefore be in play.
While I disagree that there is no right to a heckler’s veto as an absolute, I am on the side of Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the UC Irvine School of Law in his editorial published in the L.A. Times and Professor Alan Dershowitz in his Huffington Post editorial. This was not spirited political debate in which a response was expected or allowed. It was coordinated censorship. What’s the point of academic freedom if it can not be exercised to the benefit of the student body to the same extent as the protesters would expect if someone they admired was speaking.
From a practical spectator standpoint, I would also be pissed as hell if I was sitting in that auditorium unable to hear because of obnoxious students. I don’t care if they are Muslims, Jews, Hindus or Hare-Krishna’s.They are ruining the experience I have a right to enjoy and engage if I so choose. Let’s be clear. This was a structured event. It was not a “free for all come-all” in a public square. Unlike a public square, the protesters got into the event to the exclusion of other protesters and spectators. That is not open free speech as if they were in the square and anyone could chime in. It implies rules of conduct and a level of respect and decorum.
I understand that free and unpopular speech does not always occur in convenient places. One of the the points of protest is to do it in a manner to make a point. As obnoxious as these kids were, that can not be brushed off. Free speech sparing is not always done by the Marquess Of Queensbury Rules. We can only protest if we are nice and polite? Were the framers always polite in their dissent of the crown? They never shouted down the King’s emissaries as they addressed the colonies on new taxes?
In the end, the video speaks for itself to the detriment of the motives of the yelling students. This was not a spirited debate. This was an attempt to silence by screaming. The epitome of verbal terrorism. It was an attempt to stifle the academic freedom rights of Ambassador Oren and other students on the same level they claim their rights were snuffed out. This was not a come all campus wide protest on the University Green. This was an invited speaker, organized event in which the attendees had a right of reasonable quiet enjoyment and Ambassador Oren had a right to retort to any protest. This was not an open public square available to all who want to shout down the shouters. The hecklers should have been escorted out.
The statute under which the hecklers were arrested reads as follows:
“Every person, who, without authority of law, willfully disturbs or breaks up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character, other than an assembly or meeting referred to in Section 302 of the Penal Code….. is guilty of a misdemeanor”
In Hill v. Colorado the court held that the First Amendment right to free speech was not violated by a Colorado law limiting protest, education, distribution of literature or counseling within eight feet of a person entering a health-care facility.
What this tells me is that the University and city can establish reasonable content neutral rules that prohibit acts that endanger the safety of the speaker or the other members of the audience. They however can not regulate based on the content of the speech. It does not end there. I take issue with the California statute as applied here. What does “disturb” or “break-up” mean? Would it even be possible to craft a jury instruction? There is an argument that these words as applied to the protesters are so vague as to be unenforceable and therefore unconstitutional as applied to the protesters.
In the end, I am glad the protesters were escorted out. I have the same right to listen that they have to be heard. They can be heard outside the event. They do not have the 1st amendment right to shout down to the exclusion of all others in the room. This is not a public square. I however am uncomfortable with any academic discipline or legal action against the protesters. They wrere not inciting either the speaker or the crowd to violence against the speaker or other members of the crowd. We should be arresting the dangerous, not the obnoxious.
