According to The Jerusalem Post and other sites, an Israeli physics professor’s lecture at the University of Nevada (Las Vegas) was shutdown by anti-Israel protesters because campus police insisted that they had a free speech right to prevent him from speaking. It is a common claim made by anti-free speech faculty and students that is perfectly nonsensical. It is a rationalization to yield to the heckler’s veto.
Dr. Asaf Peer is a physics professor who was on campus to discuss black holes. However, he happens to be an Israeli, so his lecture became the target for anti-Israel protesters who stormed the event and began to shout him down. It is a common technique of “deplatforming” used by radical groups like Antifa.
The protesters accused him of studying and teaching on “occupied territory” and “spreading violent rhetoric” on his Facebook account.
There is no question that these students and groups have a right to protest. What they do not have a right to do is to shut down events to prevent others from hearing from a speaker.
Yet, the police intervened to end the lecture and escort Peer off campus. In other words, the protesters won.
The police were wrong on free speech and wrong on their own campus rules. Under UNLV’s Policy on Speech and Advocacy in Public Areas, the school maintains:
[Free speech] activities must not, however, unreasonably interfere with the right of the University to conduct its affairs in an orderly manner and to maintain its property, nor may they interfere with the University’s obligation to protect rights of all to teach, study, and fully exchange ideas. Physical force, the threat of force, or other coercive actions used to subject anyone to a speech of any kind is expressly forbidden.
I discuss this rationalization for shutting down free speech in my forthcoming book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.
It is now routine for protesters to prevent others from hearing opposing views and there are often allegations that some schools quietly allow the use of the heckler’s veto.
This has been an issue of contention with some academics who believe that free speech includes the right to silence others. Berkeley has been the focus of much concern over the use of a heckler’s veto on our campuses as violent protesters have succeeded in silencing speakers, including a speaker from the ACLU discussing free speech. Both students and some faculty have maintained the position that they have a right to silence those with whom they disagree and even student newspapers have declared opposing speech to be outside of the protections of free speech. At another University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.
In the meantime, academics and deans have said that there is no free speech protection for offensive or “disingenuous” speech. CUNY Law Dean Mary Lu Bilek showed how far this trend has gone. When conservative law professor Josh Blackman was stopped from speaking about “the importance of free speech,” Bilek insisted that disrupting the speech on free speech was free speech. (Bilek later cancelled herself and resigned after she made a single analogy to acting like a “slaveholder” as a self-criticism for failing to achieve equity and reparations for black faculty and students).
A few years ago, I debated NYU Professor Jeremy Waldron who is a leading voice for speech codes. Waldron insisted that shutting down speakers through heckling is a form of free speech. I disagree. It is the antithesis of free speech and the failure of schools to protect the exercise of free speech is the antithesis of higher education. In most schools, people are not allowed to disrupt events. They are escorted out of such events and told that they can protest outside of the events since others have a right to listen to opposing views. These disruptions, however, are often planned to continually interrupt speakers until the school authorities step in to cancel the event.
UNLV has to make a choice on protecting this academic space for free discourse or yielding to the mob. The protesters can demonstrate outside of a room or a hall to express their opposition to a speaker. What they cannot do is prevent others from speaking or hearing opposing views. Those responsible for such disruptions should be suspended or, for repeat offenders, expelled.
In the 1930’s “Jewish Physics” was deeply troubling to the Nazi party of that era too. The difference is today’s Nazis call themselves the “Democratic” party and their sleepwalking supporters include a majority of Jews. How the Democrat party still gets even one Black or Jewish vote after revealing their true nature is something thats bizarre and utterly incomprehensible
If we can’t listen to each other respectfully, we are doomed. Parents send their children to university to supposedly get the experience? Supposedly it is to learn to get along in society? If we decide what the other person will hear, how the other person should feel, what the other person may say, how will they learn to get along in society? We are creating a society of people who cannot go to work with others.
The hardest speech to protect is the speech you hate the most.
I wonder if I sprayed the shout downers with a noxious smelling liquid and called that free speech, would they agree?
“. . . anti-Israel protesters who stormed the event and began to shout him down. It is a common technique of “deplatforming” used by radical groups like Antifa.” (JT)
But mind you, they are perfectly civilized individuals who deserve your moral and financial support — and their own country.
Bob Woodward, of the Post, said that news coverage of the Russia inquiry ” wasn’t handled well” and that he thought viewers and readers had been “cheated.” He urged newsrooms to “walk down the painful road of introspection.” No kidding.
If 10,000,000 conservatives immigrated to the U.S., Biden would have nuked the border.
In 2021, 83 percent of Americans saw “fake news” as a “problem”
UNLV would have benefited by allowing a Physics maven to discuss his latest discoveries about black holes in the universe.
There is no such thing as Israeli physics, or American physics, or Chinese physics, or even Australian physics —- there is only physics.
lg\\\7
UNLV should have presented a seminar of subjects such as gambling, prostitution, or the dishonesty of Harry Reid. They have abundant local sources in those subjects.
Trump defamed someone. Fined 83 million. Clinton assaulted Broaddrick = $0..00
Couldn’t stop thinking about this post and the comments folks have appended to it while watching #SOTU2024.
Surprised that the people who’ve commented about last night’s speech here so far have pretty much been off-topic, making no connection to Turley’s
post, as though they could see no connection. (Curious whether Mr. Turley will connect the behaviors of the SOTU hecklers last night to the behaviors he wrote about here, in this or some other forum, anytime soon, as well. Just sayin’)
There probably is some kind of special pleading when it’s an elected representative “heckling” another elected rep in the chamber, but with that caveat, i see precious little difference between the behavior last night & the behaviors JT wrote about here. The penalties for engaging in the Heckler’s Veto—whatever we believe they should be—ought to be comparable in these similar situations…
There is a difference between that kind of heckling that interjects an unfavorable comment, eg, “Remember Afghanistan”, and that kind of heckling that makes it impossible for someone to speak. Heckling of the first type is common in parliamentary democracies when done by members.
Hypocrisy reigns supreme w/ the Left. These are the same people who smear conservatives as ”fascists”!
You cannot make this up
@kylenabecker
28m
JUST IN: Radical left-wing protesters block Joe Biden’s motorcade on his way to the #StateoftheUnion.
We are told this is “disruption of an official proceeding.” Thus, it is literally an “insurrection.”
Why aren’t they being sent to the J6 gulags? 🤔
@CollinRugg
BREAKING: Pro-Palestine protesters are blocking President Biden’s motorcade route ahead of the State of the Union Address as reported by @ScooterCasterNY
Remarkable.
A massive banner was displayed with the text: “Biden’s Legacy is Genocide.”
Shortly before the stunt, a man was arrested outside of the White House after he revved his engine near the pro-Palestine ceasefire protest.
Pro-Palestine protesters are becoming more hostile towards the president who they call “genocide Joe.”
@mrddmia
Imagine if these were Trump supporters blocking traffic.
Especially the presidential motorcade.
Arrest these Hamas supporters.
Jail the Americans.
Deport the non-Americans.
WHO is the “threat to Democracy” Joe Biden? MAGA?
These protestors are BLOCKING the presidential motorcade route to the State of the Union. Do please talk about this threat tonight, Mr. Biden.
Biden NAILED It, and Republicans know it. Meanwhile, their “rebuttal” representative, Katie Britt, used her best Hallmark charm school sing-song, obnoxious voice as a “Mom” “just like you” (speaking from her kitchen, no less) to try to attack President Biden on border issues, pathetically trying to blame him for crimes allegedly committed by migrants. She is an embarrassment to the Republican Party because she is such a blatant phony. Somehow, she must have forgotten that she was one of the Republicans who helped create the bipartisan border bill that Republicans wanted until Trump told them to kill it. Rep . Langford mouthed the words “that’s true” when President Biden described how the bill was popular until Trump killed it. And, dependably obnoxious MTG wore a campaign hat and buttons on the floor of the House, which is a violation of the rules.
The only thing Biden NAILED is Dr. Jill.
He ended this disastrous campaign speech without even saying, “And God bless the United States of America.”
The SOTU is not supposed to be a campaign speech.
It is literally supposed to be the president reporting the state of the union to congress.
The president and the WH have to be very careful to distinguich between campaign activies and executive activities.
They can not combine the two. That is barred by the hatch act.
Yes, and this tonight was a campaign speech.
More like a campaign rant… “Get off my lawn!”
John, I think Biden just immunized KJP from being able to respond to any press questions touching on the State of Union event. The whole event was political. To speak of it is a violation of the Hatch Act.
Oh, so Biden’s SOTU was a campaign speech? You must have gotten this from Ari Fleisher. Do you recall Trump’s last SOTU, in which he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to controversial firebrand Rush Limbaugh? In that speech, Trump endlessly lied over and over again, like he always does. Biden did report the state of the union, his accomplishments, which are significant and numerous and his vision for the future of Ameria, including making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, reproductive freedom, more money for the border, for judges and officers. He made clear that migrants would be less likely to pay coyotes $8,000 to get them here if they knew they’d be deported within 6 months instead of 6 years, which is why he is asking for money to hire more judges to clear the backlog and move cases along. His plan calls for purchasing equipment to detect Fentanyl .He criticzed Republicans for agreeing in principle to a bipartisan border security bill, but then refusing to call it for a vote solely because Trump thought he could use it as a campaign issue. The issue of the border is important to both parties. By Trump’s own estimates, 300,000 Americans die from Fentanyl, and he would rather see them die than see Biden get another legislative victory–all to create a fake campaign issue. Americans could see for themselves that when pro-Trump media claim that Biden is senile, doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing, and that he has to be directed by “handlers”, that they are lying. Last night proved that. Biden repeatedly went off-script, bantered with Republicans and made off-the-cuff jokes. His vision for America includes policies favored by most Americans, and he made the point that it’s not how old you are but how old your ideas are. There isn’t much future if all the next POTUS wants to do is get retribution because he lost the election and reverse policies Americans have relied on for years–like reproductive freedom. Republicans sat on their hands with few exceptions. They couldn’t even clap for standing up to Putin, for more money for teachers and for providing resources to ensure that every child can read by the 3rd grade. What’s controversial about these things?
When Biden spews garbage about the wealthy paying their fair share of taxes…Does that include Joe Biden’s own degenerate son who doesn’t even bother to pay taxes on millions of dollars of foreign bribes income?
When Biden says ‘oh but they refused to call his scam ‘border bill’ for a vote solely because Trump thought he could use it as a campaign issue’…..Is Biden telling us that Trump has more control over Congress than he, the sitting president does?
When Biden went off-teleprompter he not only screwed up the name of a murder victim directly caused by his open border policies, but then his fellow Dems were furious with him for calling the murderer an illegal. To hell with American citizens being murdered, raped, harmed — do not call these murderers “illegals”!! That was the Democrats’ outrage.
1. Hunter has paid his back taxes. 2. Trump only has control over Republicans in Congress. Unfortunately, they have a slim majority in the House, and take their marching orders from a twice-impeached former POTUS who was put out of office and who is facing 91 felony charges, 3. Biden did a marvelous job of setting out his agenda for a bright future, including tackling climate crisis, making the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, all kids can read by 3rd grade, help for first-time home buyers, lower prescription drug prices, more border security officers, Fentanyl detection equipment, more immigration judges to clear the backlog and provide prompt hearings–resulting in more deportations and creating a disincentive to migrate here in lieu of separating children from parents and concentration camps. He also would make Roe v. Wade the law of the land, which will protect IVF, and a right to contraception, including Mifepristone and Misoprostol. What is the Republicans’ vision: national abortion ban, which regardless of what Republicans say, would ban IVF, retribution for Trump’s ego; reducing Soc. Sec. and Medicare payments, lower taxes for the wealthy, which will cause the national debt to soar; concentration camps for migrants instead of clearing the backlog of asylum claims, help Putin defeat Ukraine, just for starters.
1. Hunter Biden belongs in prison.
2. Trump has no control over the Republican leadership in Congress and they do not take their “marching orders” from Trump, that’s for sure. Many of them actively work to sabotage Trump.
3. Biden set out a ‘vision for a bright future’? For who? Biden’s Family Crime Syndicate? The corrupt political class? Military industrial contractors? The oligarchs? Wealthy elite? Everyone else heard: ‘brazen lies, contempt, more war, more death, more pain, pure evil, unapologetic, shameless deceit’ from Dark Brandon’s Lawless Reign of Terror — especially if you are in the ‘MAGA extremist’ half of the country.
Don’t forget about Tara Reade who was technically raped by Biden during his finger insertion.
If you let 10M illegal immigrants in, in violation of your oath of office, in violation of the law, then yes you are responsible for the problems that come along with that.
The democrats immigration bill was so popular that it was kept secret even from other members of congress and it had inumerable timebombs buiit in.
Regardless, you lost the immigration bill fight.
Not because Trump “killed it” – though if he did – that would suggest Trump has more power in Congress than Biden.
Regardless, it died not because of Trump – but before Trump said anything it was exposed by numerous groups that started reading it as a massive boondoggle that gave its impramature to the mess we currently have.
Illegal immigration is a massive problem – not merely for Biden – but for Democrats.
Before anything else what people WANT is to return to the border situation that we had under Trump.
People are not stupid – they KNOW that is dooable.
When Democrats have acheived that – when they are following the law as it is, then we can all discuss what we want to change.
Regardless, you can not blame immigration border problems on Trump when 80% of the country wants back the border situation under Trump.
So if Biden ‘nailed it’ does that mean he can be indicted now?
No Gigi, Biden did not neail it. It was not an especially good speech. It fought for an agenda that most americans oppose, it was incredibly political. Biden stumblesd a number of times, but he did manage to complete the speech without going off into lala land – which much of the time today he manages withing 15seconds.
The SOTU was a big success for Biden – only because the bar is so low – he did not fall on his face.
But getting through the SOTU without a significant disaster, succeeds in keeping him in the running – barely a little longer.
Aside from being a highly political speech – Biden compared himself to Trump repeatedly – that was a mistake. That is free publicity for Trump and askes citizens to compare Biden and Trump – a comparison Biden loses.
Regardless, Democrats and Biden are trying to thread an impossible needle.
If Biden is competent – then SC Hur said that he repeatedly violated the espionage act as Senator and VP.
If he is not competent – why is he running ?
If he is competent – why are his policies so bad ?
According to polls
23% of democrats are enthusiastic supporters of Biden
48% of republicans enthusiastically support Trump
You are a fool. Period. Your post is a tissue of lies.
“Migrants”? Do you mean trespassers? “Rep Langford” Do you mean Sen. Lankford?
Natasha,
If Biden nailed it, why did he call murdered nursing student “Lincoln Riley?”
Her name was Laken.
And she was killed by an illegal, Biden’s failed policies let in.
And his response of, “But how many of thousand of people [are] being killed by legals?” was totally idiotic.
After all, Democrats failed defund the police policies, soft on crime DAs and no cash bail are responsible for a lot of those murders.
Natasha,
If Biden nailed it, why did he spend the first part of his speech about the Ukraine, which the majority of Americans do not care about?
Why did he talk about Jan6th, something that happened three years ago, and the majority of Americans do not care about?
Why did he talk about COVID and vaccines, something that happened over three years ago, and the majority of Americans couldn’t care less? And it happened over three years ago.
The American people are scraping by while President Biden proudly proclaims that Bidenomics is working,” she said. “Goodness, y’all. Bless his heart. We know better.”
— U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala
She nailed it.
People of your ilk blamed Trump for every single COVID-19 death. Biden opened the welcome mat for illegals. He owns their crimes.
Giesh, Joe can’t spell C A T if u spot him the C A and T.
You best study what slick did to one million innocent children, and their moms and dads, during the holocaust, while he assualted Juanitta
Should be punished for sure, but protest outside is different from protest inside the event, whether on J6 or M7 (the SOTU, last night).
Joe Biden has let illegal aliens in so they can kill Americans. Then he says he hopes his politics don’t make other people cry? Is that a sick joke? He has blood on his hands! His politics make millions of people cry!
or you could look at as cheaper lawn care services, home cleaning services, handy man repair services and better tacos in Kansas. Is this a great country or what?
Your point is that you can live better on the backs of the exploited?
The Left has opened this Pandora’s Box of rude, stupid students shutting down anything they don’t like. Let them suffer the Crybabies while the rest of us discuss the day’s events. Shut down the Leftist Universities; they are the spawning grounds of madness.
Those responsible for such disruptions should be suspended or, for repeat offenders, expelled? How about 10 years in prison for violating the civil rights of the speakers? Deans and professors getting 5 to 10 years for inciting the violation of students & faculty civil rights. It’s going to take severe penalties, (AND ENFORCEMENT) to take back our country.
Use the same statute they prosecuted Massey under.
RICO…
How long for the #SOTH hecklers, doh?
Just asking…
I’d be lenient, but you’re right; there really should be penalties when people disrupt the civil rights of public speakers…
Removing the protesters by whatever means required was the correct thing to do….and the Police grossly failed to do that and thus violated the Professor’s Constitutional Rights.
Sue every Officer, the University Management, and every Protester.
Take them to Court and make them pay the price for their willful violation of the Man’s Rights.
Where is the FBI….too busy attending Catholic Services to investigate actual criminal acts?
The Cops should have demonstrated moral courage and dedication to the Rule of Law….even if it required physical violence in the effecting of arrests of those protesters that refused to leave the premises.
When a Police Officer backs down….the Law backs down….and anarchy triumphs.
Once again the Jew-Haters get priority.
Wild-eyed crazy liberal who pretty much agrees with JT.
Protest outside an event is fine. But there is no free speech right to prevent the speech of an invited speaker, or disrupt the enjoyment of their audience. There is no free speech right to accost a political “enemy” while they’re out to dinner. Anyone who does either—whether as a hooligan or sincerely believing in the moral justice & 1a right of their actions—deserves arrest & conviction.
My only nit is I think security concerns do sometimes mandate ending the event, when those in charge cannot maintain security. It *is* giving in to the hecklers veto—and should be avoided, if at all possible—but they cannot risk the life & limb of others; not even in the name of free speech. I think they deserve a little more slack…
Wild-eyed crazy liberal who pretty much agrees with JT.
You don’t sound crazy to me.
The problem is that if the cops back down, and then no one is arrested/prosecuted, you have a situation where people are taken, by force, from a place they have a right to be. There was a Sixth Circuit case where some guy was carrying a provocative sign about Muhammad, and he was threatened by a crowd, and the cops took him away. He sued and won.
One of the ways you can tell whether something is protected speech is, it is actually speech or is it an act ?
Blocking a motorace is an act.
Preventing a speech is an Act.
Democrats like James Carville fear their very own violent brown shirts will throw the election for Donald Trump just like in 1968 with the DNC convention. Tells us everything we already knew: The Left are the violent ones.
“I fear a repeat of the chaotic 1968 riots when Dems return to Chicago for their summer convention”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13161147/biden-israel-gaza-convention-1968-james-carville.html
It is interesting, isn’t it, that they’ve chosen to go back to Chicago this particular year.