<p>Listen, you have a student who is at Brown, I am not there, so I am not in the loop about this particular incident-- I am basing my comments on when I was a student at Brown and what I remember about the frequency of/tolerance level for this sort of thing. In my four years there I recall only one similar event, when William Casey spoke (at the beginning of the lecture about a dozen kids stood and recited The Jaberwocky-- a nonsense poem "Twas brillig and the silthy toves did gyre and gimbel in the wabe..." ) </p>
<p>It was a <em>major</em> news event at Brown; discussed a great deal in the BDH-- the students who did it definitely came in for plenty of criticism (and, yes, praise as well) and I think there was even some disciplinary action. </p>
<p>That protest was not name calling or heckling; nothing personal was said to Casey-- instead it was a verbal protest/performance art/mini-civil-disobedience that lasted about 3 minutes and was designed to illustrate that Casey/the CIA was masterful at "obfuspeak."</p>
<p>I think the Casey incident was more defensible (creative, symbolic); sounds like in the D'Souza incident the kids were being brats and using name calling or scorn rather than making a convincing civil argument.</p>
<p>But I assure you that when I was there, Brown was not a place where obnoxious behavior was encouraged or tolerated, no matter what the underlying political point of view. I would be surprised if this sort of thing happens very often at Brown.</p>