The slogan of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) may be “Let there be light,” but a recent Federalist Society event produced more heat than light in the law school. Students and faculty wanted to hear from James Percival, general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, on a host of issues. However, students organized to prevent others from hearing from Percival, who was drowned out by profanity and cellphones at the event.
The incident seemed a repeat of the infamous disruption of Judge Duncan of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit at Stanford Law School three years ago.
On Tuesday night, over 150 protesters gathered outside the event chanting criticisms of the Trump administration, including “No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist U.S.A.” Protests outside of events are generally protected speech. Indeed, such protests are an important element in fostering free speech values on our campuses.
The problem is that protesters also organized to disrupt the event from inside Royce Hall. Students booed Percival throughout his talk and held up profane and disgusting signs. Some had their phones constantly ringing, making it difficult for others to hear Percival. It is, of course, fine to go to the event and ask tough questions or disagree with the speaker. These students were drowning out the speaker with shouts and phones.
The law school was aware of the preparations to disrupt the event. Groups circulated posts, hung posters, and circulated online petitions that said that even allowing the general counsel to speak with students was triggering and “threatening.”
One group called By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), called for mass protests over allowing the views of the DHS to be heard on campus. A flyer declared, “UCLA must not give representatives of ICE and the Trump Administration a base to organize Trump’s campaign of racist ethnic cleansing of the U.S. and the Middle East.”
Another posting called upon students to “Stop the fascist takeover of the American federal government! Stop the Trump police state!” Other flyers portrayed the event with allowing Nazis to speak on campus.
The UCLA Latine Law Students Association said that the event endangered students, insisting that allowing Percival to speak “utterly disregards the safety of our undocumented students and minimizes the great harm and trauma that has been inflicted on our communities over the decades.”
It further maintained that:
“By giving Mr. Percival a platform, The Federalist Society and UCLA Law are legitimizing and normalizing racially discriminatory policies that are actively harming both UCLA students and our broader community.”
It is all-too-familiar rhetoric. Groups claim to be triggered or threatened by opposing views and then use those claims to justify disruption and obstruction of the speaker.
The students were clear that anyone speaking from the Trump Administration would be subject to the same disruption: “UCLA must not give representatives of ICE and the Trump Administration a base to organize Trump’s campaign of racist ethnic cleansing of the U.S. and the Middle East.”
These students find the expression of opposing views to be intolerable. Rather than engage the speaker with a substantive and civil discussion of policies and practices, they believe that spewing profanities, heckling, and drowning out a speaker are the proper way to engage those who hold different viewpoints.
I commend Mr. Percival and the Federalist Society for their willingness to expose themselves to such abuse in an effort to foster a dialogue on these important issues. Students had the opportunity to exchange viewpoints with one of the highest-ranked officials in the DHS. That was what these protesters were intent on stopping with their shouts and cellphone tactics.
What is most notable about the videotape is that the students are clearly shown and identifiable. However, the law school’s statement on the incident did not include a commitment to hold these students accountable. It merely noted that “The law school worked with the Office of Campus and Community Safety in advance to support the event and uphold the university’s commitment to the free exchange of ideas.”
If so, it utterly failed in that commitment. These tactics are expressly prohibited by the university as “so disruptive so as to effectively silence” a speaker. The fact that the speaker continued to try to speak (and was able to do so after a walkout) does not change the fact that these students succeeded in disrupting and effectively silencing the speaker during the event.
The incident is reminiscent of the earlier incident at Northwestern University, where the university condemned but did nothing about students who entered a class and forced it to be canceled over a guest speaker from ICE. It was the lack of any action, not the condemnation, that left the greatest impact on the students.
The same full-throated message was sent at Stanford, where no student was punished, and the university made everyone watch a meaningless video that was openly mocked. One year after the incident, a majority of Stanford students believed shouting down Judge Duncan was warranted.
UCLA has shown little interest in restoring viewpoint diversity on its campus. This is the university that has paid for a series of radical “resident activists” to lecture students. It appears to have made activism a central part of its educational mission.
The same week that the law school event was disrupted, the Undergraduate Students Association Council “condemned” the holding of an event featuring a hostage who survived the Oct. 7 massacre. The group declared the event as “elevating a single narrative” and obscuring “what has been widely identified by human rights advocates as a genocide in Gaza.”
In this context, the law school controversy is hardly surprising. UCLA remains a deeply intolerant environment for many speakers and students.
We will now wait to see whether the University, the Law School and Dean Michael Waterstone are willing to discipline the students who disrupted this event. This type of premeditated, overt misconduct reflects an enabling culture fostered by the faculty.
If UCLA wants more light than heat, it must start enforcing (rather than just mouthing) its commitment to the free expression of viewpoints.
Those students identifiable should be thrown out of the law school and if they ever get a law degree the Ethics Committee of the relevant bar associations informed they are not qualified to be admitted to the bar.
Do the readers here know that UCLA is a foreign country full of foreigners with only a few residual Americans?
They read California and Los Angeles, and they think America, which couldn’t be more wrong.
Conservative speakers inevitably attract the social warriors hell bent on saving humanity from words. The administration knows this and yet fails to have a representative sit in to document the harassment and mete out appropriate punishment. Instead, fake outrage.
Disappointing but hardly surprising.
University administrators are often fellow woke globalists and sympathize with the cause of shutting down conservative speech. So they don’t feel incentivized to prevent that kind of disruption. Plus what consequences do they ever suffer from being weak-kneed? None.
“What fresh hell is this?”
– Dorothy Parker
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There is a new quantity of unconstitutional communist intrusion in America every day.
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Proclamation 80—Calling Forth the Militia and Convening an Extra Session of Congress
“On April 15, 1861,…President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling forth the state militias, to the sum of 75,000 troops, in order to suppress the rebellion. He appealed ‘to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union.’”
Proclamation 92—Warning to Rebel Sympathizers
“[On] July 17, 1862,…I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim to and warn all persons within the contemplation of said sixth section to cease participating in, aiding, countenancing, or abetting the existing rebellion or any rebellion against the Government of the United States and to return to their proper allegiance to the United States on pain of the forfeitures and seizures as within and by said sixth section provided.”
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Abraham Lincoln was a Great American President.
Now President Donald J. Trump MUST implement his rendition of “The Lincoln Era”; close the border; rescind rebel sanctuary cities; compassionately repatriate all illegal and unassimilable aliens; issue mass temporary work permits with no path to citizenship; revoke birthright citizenship; make English the sole official language; commence a war to defeat the rebellion; impose martial law; suspend habeas corpus; “smash” rebel printing presses, networks, podcasts, and social media platforms; and imprison political opponents and rebel judges, all in order to save not the Union but the Nation, eradicate communism and the communist American welfare state, and place America squarely back on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, including absolute freedom, free enterprise, free industries, free markets, private property, and minimal taxation and regulation, alongside infinitesimal constitutional government.
For each “protester” who engaged in the violative conduct, a record of their behavior must follow them through their adult life. They should be ‘un-hireable by any business except those entities seeking agitators.
Well, at least we now have the photographs of who not to hire when they get out and are interviewing for something in the real world. And to think that they could have worn masks! When I enetered college, I was thrilled to be around a lot of smart people and curious about the furutre interactions we would have. It didn’t take long to realize that high intellect was no defense against abject stupidity, after all it was the early 1970’s. I am amazed to see that 50 years later, the students have actually gotten dumber and more idiotic than before.
Could it be the ever lowering standards in education? or the amount of drugs we now give our kids? or the ridiculous & farcical people who get platformed by the media, social or national? or the newer street drugs they take to party? or are we just sending sheep to college? Let’s face it, Law isn’t as complicated or as hard as many other fields which is why there are so many lawyers running around looking for work. It’s even more amazing that the universities have not learned their lesson yet about protecting free speech and how to control the disruptors.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights must be supported and protected.
These are crimes against the state and subversive acts against the United States; they must be prosecuted vigorously, including military force.
Illegal immigration, unlawful residence, harboring and concealment, providing taxpayer-funded benefits, maintaining sanctuary jurisdictions, denying U.S. citizens their constitutional rights, aiding and abetting undocumented illegal aliens or other criminals, etc., are all offenses that must be forcefully and definitively addressed under the law.
Generally agree. That’s why I am so disappointed that my President is not doing what he said he would do and instead appears to be taking marching orders from a criminal running an insignificant little country 5100 miles from his office
What does “Death to America” from an anarchic ragtag horde of lunatics and fanatics mean exactly?
Trump is making sure those lunatics don’t get an A-bomb, which they would use the same day they got it. They can’t be deterred with mutually-assured-destruction because they want a world war (even if it includes their own destruction) to bring about the emergence of the Mahdi.
Let’s set up the situation:
An organization with which you adamantly disagree has set up an event with speakers, printed material, a Q&A period, and a meet and greet.
There is nothing illegal about the event or the speech within the event.
In fact, while you may disagree vehemently with the points of view expressed, the content is legal, describes legitimate positions, and is completely rational. Nobody there is forcing anything on anyone, they are simply part of the social and political life of your country(assuming you are not an illegal alien or treasonous spy).
Q: Do you
a) Skip the event because you don’t want
to hear what bad people have to say
b) Skip the event because you are already
familiar with the topics and the speakers
and don’t see it as a productive use of
time
c) Go to the event because you feel there
are legitimate questions, pro or con, that
need to be asked. This may be a chance.
d) Go to the event to have your positions
validated and reinforced
e) Go to the event to shout down speakers,
disrupt so nobody else can listen, or
assault speakers and audience members
because they are such bad people
If you answered ‘a’ you are a cult member and are either stupid or lazy. Or both.
If you andwered ‘b’ you are probably correct but maybe a little lazy. You might be surprised.
If you answered ‘c’ you are a decent and active member of society.
If you answered ‘d’ you are a cult member and are either stupid or lazy. Or both.
If you answered ‘e’ you are a POS who should be expelled, arrested, or thrashed by the audience in the case that responsible authorities refuse to do their jobs because you are unable to function in a civilized society.
Given that the event at UCLA was speech and not an attack on anyone, I simply cannot understand, or tolerate, those who choose ‘e.’
OldFish, I love this breakdown. It captures the entire issue in one frame: the difference between citizens who can live in a free society and people who only feel “safe” when they’re choosing option e and trying to shut it down for everyone else.
OldFish,
In an ideal world it would be “c” and I would add to to keep an open mind when listening to the opposing view if there is one or question brought up in the Q&A.
Unfortunately, there are those who think that any kind of debate is “violence” and has to be shut down even to go so far to deny others the right to hear a speaker. In that case, they see their hecklers veto as a greater moral righteousness than someone else’s 1stA right to hear the speaker.
OldFish
In your analysis you repeatedly refer to the opposing side as bad people. This would be a totally subjective opinion as they are not bad people. They are people with opposing views that the attendees get to decide through open dialogue whether they themselves agree with or not.
This I believe is where much of this behavior is driven from, dehumanizing attacks by the opposing sides as Nazis, Fascists, Pedophiles, or whatever the current propaganda name of the week may be.
When you’re young if you are not a liberal you have no heart, when you’re 30 and you’re still a liberal you have no mind…
That’s not Royce Hall. It looks like one of the big lecture halls in the law school.
How do we explain the silence of the student body, who are heirs to 1st Amendment rights? I suspect it is something like “identification with the aggressor” or the “Stockholm Syndrome” which makes the helpless victims of aggression come to sympathize with their oppressors.
There is a saying “if you can’t beat them, join them.”
If something like that is going on, all the more reason for conservatives to use the legal system (at least) to make the disruptive students pay for their actions. People who fight back are respected and followed.
These are communists and direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis of freedom and self-reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans, and America.
These criminals are in violation of university rules, city codes, California Criminal Code, federal law, and the Constitution and are civilly liable for damages and attorney’s fees.
In a society of laws, the laws must be strictly adhered to, or there is no society.
America is a society of freedom that is diametrically—and ultimately militarily—opposed to communism.
If this is not treason—given that these communists are adhering to the enemy and giving them aid and comfort—then America has become communist by default.
Damn BAMN (thank you ma’am)
The good professor writes, “We will now wait to see whether the University, the Law School and Dean Michael Waterstone are willing to discipline the students who disrupted this event.” As a public service, I would suggest not holding one’s breath as this learning institution decides whether or not to discipline the students.
I can envision it:
Your Honor I’m invoking my right to free speech, and I protest the expert witness, they are full of nonsense, and my client is experiencing great discomfort in the expert’s testimony. Do too that we will be turning our phones on to the loudest ring possible until this witness is removed from the stand.
Council who is we?
We your Honor is everyone in this chamber who finds the expert witness harming to their well-being, we; that is everyone in this chamber who hear no value in anything but which we approve, all else is just a bunch of propaganda.
Council you are out of order.
No, your Honor, you are out of order by allowing anything but which we approve to be spoken in this court. I or should I say we, will not allow this to continue until the witness is removed, or WE will continue to protest their testimony. And in addition, you’re Honor, having allowed this witness to spew nonsense we will shut this trial down, FREE SPEECH is ALL we’re demanding!
‘WE ARE THE ONES’ and we will determine what is said.
Oh: by the way I grad-u-ated COM_Latte, from a Prestiges University.
What would UCLA do if Obama were treated the same way?
Kamala?
Mamdani?
We all know what would happen then.
UCLA is corrupt.
Abraham Lincoln was a great president with insight and, to borrow a phrase from George H. W. Bush, “the vision thing.”
“If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. [Should freed blacks should be made] politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals. [Racial separation] must be effected by colonization [of the country’s blacks to a foreign land]. The enterprise is a difficult one [but] where there is a will there is a way.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854
“And what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self‑interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.”
— Abraham Lincoln, Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857
What’s that? Chum?
Find each and every disruptive student and expel them without reimbursing their tuition.
Absolutely 0 tolerance for this fascist behavior is the only policy that will bring discipline to these students chaotic lives.
It’s California, Eric. You’ll notice the absence of this vile behavior here in Florida; with the able assistance of Florida State Government, this just doesn’t happen.
Don’t hold your breath.
Hold administration accountable and faculty within departments. Accreditation can be lost and the law dept. no longer accredited. Leave successful departments up and running, well funded. It might keep them out of the federal system.
Certainly apply the fail rule. Large fines are appropriate. Hand out tickets. Pound their pots and pans, blow whistles in a court room.
Protest fatigue. You should have stayed with listen, speak, read, write.
Section 403 of the California Penal Code makes it a misdemeanor to wilfully interrupt a public meeting.
^^^^BTW this was 150 pupils at UCLA? what’s the enrollment? 1000s , huge? Flick them off like mosquitoes with fines and probation. Be sure they understand and are invited to civil debates and required courses in civil debate.
I’ll need to read it again, UCLA?
@Anonymous
I don’t know how we do that when increasingly the faculty are the former students, likely by design. 🤷🏻♂️ It really is shaping up to be a Lord of The Flies scenario – an island (echo chamber) where the people involved willfully refuse to acknowledge anyone else even exists, and then eventually forget the same. This obviously will not translate back into the world at large where 3/4 of us are not in the echo chamber. What constitutes an ideological minority has never been so well-funded nor well-represented in the public square before; if one didn’t know better, they could be forgiven for thinking their common sense is a scarce commodity when it really isn’t.
^^^ additionally there are approx 50,000 students at UCLA. This incident involved 150 students?
Continue to send conservative speakers. Document disruption and go after the law college’s accreditation. Keep them out of federal system. They can play with each other in California.
Obstruction, chaos, obnoxious rhetoric… all the hallmarks of democrat strategy. Never a new or good idea – just hate, condemnation and disruption. No news here.
Are you really willfully blind? Read the comments here, is see obnoxious rhetoric, chaos and obstruction? What about in the Trump regime? No, you say? Then you are delusional or just plain stupi…
You again. I don’t read most of the comments here any longer because of all the useless, lengthy posts by prog bots. I just see the topic on my email feed, if it’s interesting I post a comment and then move on. It’s sad that angry progs such as you have ruined a good site. Why don’t you just create your own angry blog and shout into the wind to your hearts desire. The reason you won’t is that there would be no one to irritate with your blather.
Well said. This “Anonymous” person is so deep in the hatred to see anyone who is a conservative, he’s increasing his chances of full-scale delusion.
To adhere to any prog ideology at this point is to assert to the world that you are already in full-scale delusion. A rational mind cannot accept the progressive’s misconceptions of reality whereas the empty vessels who are not schooled in sound basic concepts of history, civilization, established and long-lasting cultures are easily convinced that these new ideas (mostly untested or, as in the case of marxism, tested and found wanting at every juncture), will produce the promised utopia on earth if you just allow the progs to direct your actions. Such minds that would fall for these prog ideas are wanting a group identity that allows for their own proclivities to be validated; the ones that have been treated with well deserved criticism from the beginning of recorded civilizations. We just need to endure these misguided fools until they age out or are consumed by their passions. It is comforting to see that a good part of this new generation are seeing the tumult and tragedies of those who followed that pied piper tune of “make you own kind of music, sing your own special song” – to quote Mama Cass – that most times your own kind of music leaves you alone and rudderless.
I’m sorry your mind has been wasted due to your posts about Trump. My advice is to see a shrink
If you can’t discern the difference between comments you find distasteful and disrupting a Speaker at a scheduled event so that ALL other Attendees cannot hear then perhaps it is YOU that is ignorantly blinded by your own biases. Here’s a clue, don’t read them, pass over them, if you feel slighted respond with a rebuttal instead of an attack.
What about Trump? What about Trump? What about Trump? A moron like a broken record. Ah of course it’s all Trump’s fault the idiots in college are so obnoxious. Get over it. By the way what about Biden! What about Obama the people that brought this chaos to our country .
Food for thought.
Perhaps higher education needs to review its core/required subjects for graduation. Contemplating the growing immaturity and juvenile ‘acting-out-for-attention’ that seems to be taking over campuses, maybe we can swallow some of the blame for not TEACHING students how to be most persuasive and compelling in their viewpoints.
Let’s not disallow protest. But let’s STRUCTURE it.
Let’s ask our colleges and universities to add a REQUIRED COURSE for graduation to be “Speech and Debate.” Enrolled students could vote on the controversial subjects, then instructors could invite two outside speakers to head opposing-view debate teams (like a “Judge Duncan” or a DHS immigration official) .
Students could learn the most effective ways to address opposing views, rebuttal, and CONSTRUCTIVE argument in a structured environment–and gain respect and admiration from their fellow students in the process.
Take a look at the attachment:
https://www.living-democracy.com/textbooks/volume-4/students-manual-6/student-handout-35/
Scroll down just a little and look at Rules for Debate, particularly Rules 5 through 8. Anyone failing to follow those rules flunks.)
Think of what it would mean if students could articulate their views in an environment where everyone else in the room must remain silent and LISTEN, then hear ‘opposing arguments’ under the same rules, and actually have open discussion and opinions afterwards.
People can’t even read and obey a no-smoking sign.
In Japan they do. Probably in China, too.
Lin,
I think that is a very interesting idea.
The Free Press does something similar, here is their latest example: The Gen-Z Debate with Harry Sisson and Isabel Brown
“Young Americans are struggling. Roughly 70 percent of Gen Z reports significant financial anxiety. About two-thirds of parents say their adult Gen-Z children still rely on them financially. More than 40 percent of Gen Z reports having been diagnosed with a mental-health condition—the highest rate of any generation in modern American history.
But why?”
https://www.thefp.com/p/watch-the-gen-z-debate-with-harry
I would argue that colleges and universities faculty would have to also adhere to such a standard in the first place. As we have seen, and as the good professor has pointed out, colleges and universities have not exactly gone out of their way to allow differing ideas or debates to be held. In some cases, quite the opposite. Fostering a faculty that is clearly one sided does not help.
Upstate: Your point is well taken. But it goes beyond faculty.
I first think of members of Congress. Instead of constructive argument, we end up with the Jasmine Crocketts and “mother f—er” linguists like Rashid Tlaib REPRESENTING the best of us? and showing the world what we are becoming.
Next I think of Media, where leftwing control has inculcated a viewing and listening Public with nothing but selective facts and distorted political views that favor one side, subtlely and abstrusely pushing its agenda to an under-educated and exploitable public.
Finally, I think of the public-at-large, so involved and distracted with TikTok, YouTube, and getting “likes” on social commentary that it evades the corrosive loss of a cohesive society that requires BASIC respect, demeanor, and social conduct in order to succeed.
(BTW, your response to hullbobby this morning was one of your best.)
Lin, so it’s only the left that has a problem with debate rules and civility? I’m sure a lot of those on the right have the same issue. Why not make an example of both sides.
X, why not use your login “X/George” when you are afraid to sign your name?
is there an example where a liberal is giving a speech at a college and gets shouted down by those on the right?
I personally have not seen an example of that in the news. OTOH, Professor Turley has written about numerous instances, such as this one, where leftist students prevent a conservative from speaking.
Until you fumigate the faculty of institutions of higher learning, there will be no cogent, enlightened graduates, just a continuous stream of indoctrinated, mentally cudgeled prog tools spewing out propaganda for the left. First clean house of prog agenda-driven ideologues and hire true scholars.