Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Some Distinctions, Please:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2007_05_27-2007_06_02.shtml#1180677198
Commenter [1]Pete writes, on the UC Irvine thread:
There have been incidents of violence by muslims against non
muslims at UCI including throwing a cinderblock at an FBI agent's
car, muslim students disrupted Daniels Pipes speech, student
housing was defaced with swastikas, and here is a rather hateful
speech called "Israel the 4th Reich" by Amir Abdel Malik Ali
sponsored by the campus Muslim Student Union.
For those interested in what the chancellor is defending, here is a
video of one of the events where the speaker blames Jews for 9/11
and where the blogger doing the videotaping is thrown out when
discovered. The blogger was also followed by and assaulted by
Muslims after they found out he was video taping the event.
I've heard similar catalogs from others who are faulting UCI, and
seemingly calling for more speech restrictions.
The trouble is that this mixes together a great deal of behavior, some
of which should clearly be punished -- though by punishment of the
attackers, not restrictions on the speech of coreligionists -- and
some of which is constitutionally protected.
Thus of course students who throw cinderblocks at cars, vandalize
student housing, and assault people should be criminally punished, and
punished by the university as well. If the police or UCI knew who the
criminals were, had proof that they committed the crimes, and failed
to punish them, that should be strongly faulted; likewise if the
police or UCI didn't investigate the crimes adequately. But if the
swastika drawers were simply never found, despite a reasonable
investigation, then there's little to fault the police and UCI for.
Certainly UCI can't punish Muslim student groups generally for the
acts of individual Muslim students (unless there's some evidence that
the group was actively involved in the act), much less for acts in
which the actor is unknown.
Likewise, people who disrupt speakers (assuming we're talking about
noise, rushing the stage, and the like, and not just holding a
peaceful but offensive protest outside) should be disciplined. If you
have evidence that UCI had the goods on them but didn't properly
discipline them -- or refused to get the goods on them -- then pass
them along, and we can decide to fault UCI for that. But again the
penalties would have been punishing the students, not shutting down
extremist Muslim events organized by other students.
But a "rather hateful speech called 'Israel the 4th Reich'" is, well,
speech. The freedom of speech surely extends to expressions of hatred
and hostility to foreign governments (or for that matter one's own
government), however unfair or bigoted those expressions might be.
Likewise, a "speaker [who] blames Jews for 9/11" is a speaker, engaged
in speech. The freedom of speech likewise extends to arguing that
there are government coverups and malign conspiracies, even when we
think such theories are foolish and hateful.
University chancellors should defend the right to engage in such
speech. And certainly the fact that some Muslim students have engaged
in vandalism and assault doesn't warrant a university's stopping other
Muslim students from inviting other Muslim speakers who want to engage
in constitutionally protected speech.
References
1. http://volokh.com/posts/1180645894.shtml#223873
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