HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017222.jpg

4.2.12 WC: 191694 Expressions that deliberately disrupt a speaker with whom one disagrees The Bruce Franklin case also included this alleged exception to the First Amendment—namely, that although there is a constitutional right to heckle speakers (at least in some context), there is no such right to silence a speaker by shouting him down. When Henry Cabot Lodge came to speak at Stanford in January 1971, he was shouted down with cries of “pig” and “war criminal,” and then drowned out by continuous chanting and clapping. Eventually, the program had to be canceled (just as a similar program had been canceled several years earlier at Harvard.) Franklin participated in the shouting but denied complicity in the chanting and clapping that brought the program to an untimely end. The ACLU brief that I filed vigorously disagreed with Franklin’s contention that there is a “right” to silence a speaker who is deemed to be a “war criminal”: “(If the Board concludes that Professor Franklin intentionally engaged in concerted activity designed to silence Ambassador Lodge—that is, to prevent him from speaking at all—then it is the Civil Liberties Union’s position that some discipline would be appropriate.” It defended, however, Franklin’s right to heckle, boo, and express displeasure at the speaker of disagreement with his views. If members of the audience may cheer and applaud approval, they must also have a coextensive right to demonstrate disapproval: “The rule of thumb [is] that the speaker’s entire address must be allowed to be heard, but it may be frequently interrupted, so long as he is permitted to continue a short time after each interruption. This rule does not make for the most comfortable or effective oratory, but the American Civil Liberties Union believes it to be the constitutionally required balance...” The Stanford Committee followed the ACLU guidelines and concluded that Franklin had not tried to prevent Lodge from speaking. Forty years later, I tried to get the Southern California branch of the ACLU to apply these same guidelines to another case involving the disruption of a speaker who had been invited by a university—this time the University of California at Irvine, a public university. But its leaders refused to do so, because they disapproved of the speaker and favored the politics of those who were trying to silence him. First, some background. There is a growing international campaign to prevent pro-Israel advocates, who have been invited to speak at universities, from delivering their speeches. The method used to silence these speakers and preclude their audiences from hearing their message is exemplified by what occurred at the University of California at Irvine. Michael Oren -- a distinguished scholar and writer, a moderate supporter of the two-state solution, and now Israel's Ambassador to the United States -- was invited to speak. The Muslim Student Union set out to prevent him from delivering his talk. Here is the way Erwin Chemerinksy, Dean of the law school, described what the students did: [35 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017222