The University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law is in the midst of a free-speech emergency.
When a major American law school teaches its students that the right way to respond to political opponents is to silence them, something has gone wrong.
And when it then attempts to protect those disruptive students from public criticism by threatening other students’ speech, it’s a crisis.
That’s just what happened at UCLA this past month.
Last month, the local chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative lawyers’ group,hosted a lecture by James Percival, the general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.
It was quickly derailed by student protesters.
Even by the disappointing standards of a campus shout-down, this one was particularly egregious: Protesters filled the room and begandisruptingthe even before the introductions were even finished.
They shouted; they booed; they sounded their cell phone ringtones on cue. About 50 protesters — mostly students later staged a distracting walk-out.
Students had every right to protest Percival. They could have rallied outside, criticized him online, or written op-eds in the Daily Bruin. Better yet, they could have asked tough questions, and made clear they despise the administration’s immigration policies. That is protected speech.
At a public university like UCLA, the First Amendment protects both the invited speaker’s right to speak and the students’ right to protest. But it does not allow one group of students to stop another group from hearing an invited speaker.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
