Bill Maher said it well last night. Even hate speech is free speech. Only thing not covered by the first amendment is threats. This is the equivalent of book burning.
If you don’t want to hear someone speak, don’t listen.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Let’s move on from the discussion of fascism vs. socialism please - it’s only derailing the topic. 5 posts deleted.
Free speech is what makes our universities the best in the world. It would be a horrible loss to have this incredible gift tarnished, and perhaps ruined. More importantly, if one opposes free speech, they oppose all freedom.
Marvin 100 - And Hillary Clinton was A Goldwater Girl. Your point is?
@HarvestMoon1: I think I could censor an awful lot if my only rules were that I had to show it “infringing on the rights of others” or “interfere with regular activities.” CMC is a private institution, so it can set its own rules, but I doubt a state school could get away with such a speech code.
@CaliCash: Many things are not covered by the first amendment. For example, all private conduct. When talking about universities, a lot of which are private, the argument is more on general principles than legalities. For the state schools it is different, but it’s still wrong to say only threats are unprotected (in fact, many threats are protected speech).
@Demosthenes49 In the case of the CMC speaker, Heather MacDonald was prevented from entering the building because protestors blocked the entrance. There is no ambiguity in the language of CMC’s policy – you can’t “restrict movement” and you can’t “impede access” to a facility. I think that language would be upheld for a public university as well. I do not believe any case law exists which gives protesters the right to block an entrance or impede access to a building – public or private. And then of course you have the state laws and regulations to contend with which would also prohibit such interference.
In fact, if I recall correctly, a few years back the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court effectively reversed a federal court decision that said it was unconstitutional to prohibit demonstrations on the plaza directly in front of the Supreme Court entrance. Justice Roberts in response approved a U.S. Marshal’s regulation that banned demonstrations on that particular plaza. The reason given by the Marshal for the regulation was that it ensures “unimpeded ingress and egress of visitors to the court.”
@HarvestMoon1: Restricting movement or impeding access are probably fine. But what about “interfering with regular activities.” What’s limiting that? Why can’t CMC say that protesting interferes with their ability to bring speakers onto campus, which is a regular activity, cite evidence of cancelled speakers, and thereby prohibit protest? While permissible in a private institution, I think there would be a serious vagueness problem for a state school.
I believe the case you refer to is [Hodge v. Talkin](https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/D8B3547AD4B7D85685257EAF004F71BC/$file/13-5250-1570216.pdf). The district court found it unconstitutional, but the Court of Appeal overturned the District Court and upheld the statute. SCOTUS denied cert. The regulation in question was over 60 years old at the time.
Because if you read CMC’s policy in it’s entirety it is clear that they acknowledge the right to peaceful assembly by protestors. And then they go on to define where that right ends:
There is a major distinction between protesting a speaker and attempting to ensure that speaker doesn’t get heard on campus. When students read that policy and agree to it when they enroll, their “reasonable expectations” (which is the standard set by some federal courts in interpreting such policies) should be that they are free to protest but not shut the event down.
So I read that policy as conferring rights on both the protestors and the attendees/speaker.
@HarvestMoon1: I agree that CMC’s policy can be read in a reasonable way. I’m just not convinced that it’s the only way to read it. It seems to me like “materially disruptive” could be read to include “disruptive to such an extent that we would need to consider cancelling the event.” Nothing in the policy that I’ve seen prevents any official from reaching that conclusion.
As a contractual matter it’s a bit murky. While I have seen some courts apply principles of contract interpretation, I’ve seen others give universities a fair bit of discretion. This policy vests an awful lot of discretion in CMC either way.
@Demosthenes49 I am not following you here. Your concern was that the wording of CMC’s policy was too broad and could give the administration too much discretion in shutting down a protest. Now you seem to be focusing on cancelling the event. This is exactly what is happening – CMC’s failure to hold the protestors to the policy they agreed to when they enrolled is shutting down speakers on campus. This infringes on the rights of those students who wish to attend the event.
The language in the policy that we were discussing pertains to the limits imposed on protestors not on the speaker or attendees of the event. It’s quite clear what the parameters are and those students should be held to that standard.
“Disruptive actions or demonstrations are those that restrict free movement on any of the campuses, or interfere with, or impede access to, regular activities or facilities of any of the Colleges or CUC.”
Your right to free speech is only valid to the point it does not infringe on the rights of others. Well settled law. Free speech is not “shutting down” events or keeping others from speaking or going to see a speaker…or even going to class. That is NOT protected speech. Some folks on campus need to spend more time in class than on protest lines. The real world will be quite a shock!
I suspect these aren’t even college kids tho. Just professional troublemakers. Corporate Anarchy for hire.
@Demosthenes49
“Why can’t CMC say that protesting interferes with their ability to bring speakers onto campus, which is a regular activity, cite evidence of cancelled speakers, and thereby prohibit protest? While permissible in a private institution, I think there would be a serious vagueness problem for a state school.”
Why not? Bc they have other options that do not completely disallow free speech. (If they had NO other options, it might even be permissible, i.e., no loud protesting outside an exam site). Unless and until the school interprets it “over the line”, a bit of vagueness is not really a problem.
@HarvestMoon1: The point I am inartfully trying to make is that nothing prevents CMC from applying its rule broadly under the theory that protests can cause events to cancel. Since cancelling events would “impede regular activities,” the terms of the policy would support CMC’s shutting down protest. There isn’t any limitation on what “impede” means or what “regular activities” are. Alternatively, CMC could always interpret its rule narrowly to find that speakers are not “regular activities” in the way that classes are, and therefore permit large scale demonstrations to force cancellations.
@HRSMom: I’m not really sure what “well settled law” you’re talking about here. CMC is a private institution to which the First Amendment does not apply. Even if it were a state institution, time, place, and manner restrictions are legal. Further, there’s no narrow tailoring requirement in CMC’s policy that I saw. Nothing says they have to pick the option that maximizes both the ability to have a speaker and the ability to protest.
@Demosthenes49 - the right of CMC to shut down a protest or discipline students after the fact is set forth in the policy. There is no right for them to shut down a protest until the activity rises to the level of the interference described in the policy. A protest that does not shut down an event or interfere with the speaker being heard ( as in the Middlebury case}, cannot be shut down by the administration under the clear wording of that policy.
In any case the scenario you worry about where protests might be shut down is not the reality on college campuses right now. In fact it is just the opposite. CMC did not shut down the protest, nor did Berkeley, UC Davis or Middlebury. Instead the speaker was either cancelled, chased from campus or relegated to an empty room with a live stream to deliver a non-interactive presentation. That should worry everyone.
@Demosthenes49 If it WERE a govt sponsored entity…your post was premised on that, unless you were really making a contract argument. I presumed you were not as the policy is not measured on contract terms, only on how it is applied (reasonableness, consistency, etc.). Or perhaps you are just flexing your memory from conlaw class.
@HarvestMoon1: I understand that the activity must rise to a certain level. My point is that defining the “level of interference described in the policy” is left to the CMC administrators. The policy uses loose enough language that the level can be an extremely wide range. Nothing says CMC can’t reason as follows: protests cause a substantial risk of escalating to the point that we need to cancel speakers; speakers are a regular activity; protests therefore impede that regular activity; therefore protests violate the policy and are not permitted.
My point is not that CMC has used this policy to shut down speakers (although switching from live to live-stream, I would say, is pretty much the same as shut down). My point is that they can.
@HRSMom: My point is that the CMC policy is sufficiently loose to permit wide-scale censorship that turns on who the particular administrator is. As an aside I noted that I didn’t think this would survive a vagueness challenge if it were a state school policy.
Since they seem to be ignoring the policy altogether, I’m not sure we need to worry about that, (unless the conservative students demand their own rights under the policy!
I do not think the language in the policy is loose at all – it is very specific. And if the event is proceeding as scheduled then that is pretty good indication that the protest has stayed within the guidelines.
So you are suggesting that might take the liberty of banning all protests? Cannot imagine any institution doing that and as I have already pointed out they cannot as their own policy provides for peaceful protests. And again, you are worrying about the wrong thing as noted above.
The Student Life reports that the CMC administration has been calling student protestors into meetings with the dean of students and informing the students that they may face sanctions including possible withholding of transcripts, not being allowed to walk at graduation, suspension, etc. http://tsl.news/news/6794/
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-edu-claremont-students-suspended-20170722-story.html
“Claremont McKenna College has suspended three students for a year and two others for a semester for blocking access to a campus event to protest a speaker known for defending police against Black Lives Matter activists.”
…
“Four of the suspended students were seniors and had their degrees revoked pending completion of the suspensions, actions that affected their ability to compete for jobs that require a college degree, said Nana Gyamfi, co-founder and lead organizer of the L.A.-based group Justice Warriors 4 Black Lives.”