Governing is an art. Where you have a volatile situation, as is the case right now at Mizzou, it’s not so bad if (a) people feel they can call the police to report racial slurs and other hostile speech, (b) the police act as if they could do something about it, and © people worry if they could get arrested or expelled for yelling racial slurs. Now, it may be, after you go to court, and maybe take an appeal or two, that the university can’t do anything to a student who yells racial slurs. (I am not so certain about that, by the way, but there’s no question that a public university could not punish in any way lots of the “hurtful” speech in the news.) But that will be months from now. The Constitution will be preserved and vindicated. But short-term, maybe everyone will calm down a little.
In 2000, the Republicans held their convention in Philadelphia. There were tons of protesters, of course, including some hard-core anarchists. The police arrested people liberally. The courts released them as fast as they could be processed, which at times was maybe not as fast as one might have hoped. Everyone was shocked, shocked!, that the police were cavalierly violating the First Amendment like that. It was shameful, tsk-tsk. The convention went on smoothly, without disruption. The protesters got tons of media coverage and great “my night in jail” stories (and, in a few cases, a small monetary settlement). The protests were very enthusiastic. Worked for everyone, pretty much.