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.
