Steve and Eugene are confirming my initial take on this issue. Does the analysis change if the lecture is open to the university community (as are most such lectures by invited speakers)? It is an open lecture as opposed to a class where only enrolled students are entitled to attend.
As Steve suggests, there would be a different issue if the protestors were denied access to a room for their own expressive activities, but that is not the case here. Alan ________________________________ From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu <religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> on behalf of Steven Jamar <stevenja...@gmail.com> Sent: Friday, April 22, 2016 4:47:01 AM To: Law Religion & Law List Subject: Re: speech and religion hypothetical Oh oh. Eugene and I agree completely on something! Protesters in a limited designated public forum are not engaging in protected activity. There is no constitutional right to disrupt another’s speech in such a setting. If the school refused to give the protesters a forum at all, that would be viewpoint discrimination and would violate the constitution. Steve On Apr 22, 2016, at 1:43 AM, Volokh, Eugene <vol...@law.ucla.edu<mailto:vol...@law.ucla.edu>> wrote: No and no. A content-neutral restriction forbidding the disruption of speakers who have been invited by a group that has booked a room, and thus gotten exclusive access to the room for that time, is certainly constitutional. And religious speakers are no more and no less protected here. Eugene From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu> [mailto:religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Alan E Brownstein Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2016 9:41 PM To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics <religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu>> Subject: speech and religion hypothetical I recognize this hypothetical, based very indirectly on a real incident, is more speech than religion, but I hope Eugene will allow my post to go forward in any case. Suppose a LGBT student group at a public university invites a guest speaker to present a scheduled lecture in a university classroom. The campus administration allows student groups to invite speakers and to sign up to use campus facilities with few restrictions. It is a common practice. A group of religious students strongly opposed to the speaker's message disrupt the speaker's presentation after it has begun. They commandeer the front of the room and chant anti-LGBT messages for 3 - 4 minutes. Then they leave. (Alternatively, we can reverse the facts and have the presentation of a religious speaker invited by a religious group of students disrupted by gay rights proponents to a similar extent.) I have two questions for list members. 1. Is the conduct of the protestors protected by the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment? Does the First Amendment prevent the university from prohibiting this kind of protest through content neutral time, place and manner regulations and from punishing the protestors' conduct if the regulations are disobeyed? (If you think that this is or is not protected speech, are there particular cases you rely on to support this conclusion?) 2. Does the answer to the first question change in any way because religious speakers, protestors, and messages are involved in these incidents. Alan Brownstein _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu<mailto:Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu> To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others. -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar Assoc. Dir. of International Programs Institute for Intellectual Property and Social Justice http://iipsj.org http://sdjlaw.org Two quotes from Louis Armstrong: "You blows who you is." "If ya ain't got it in ya, ya can't blow it out."
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
