4 ms·

Two-Thirds of College Students Think Shouting Down a Public Speaker Can Be OK

9 points by mhb 3y ago

samstave 3y ago
Regardless, any time there is a speaker on a campus, the flyer should denote how much that speaker was paid to speak there.
smoldesu 3y ago
Both sound like they're protected by the first amendment to me. If people are booing you and telling you to get off the proverbial stage, you may be at a public impasse.
- mhb 3y ago
  No. The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. Heckling someone stifles that person's right to express their ideas. Free speech is meant to protect the expression of ideas. Preventing someone from speaking is an act of silencing rather than an act of expressing an idea. Usually speakers at events are invited and the host has given them a platform. Disrupting them denies them that platform without providing a meaningful counter-argument or alternative viewpoint. Free speech requires an environment where ideas can be freely exchanged and debated. If one party is prevented from speaking, then no meaningful dialogue can occur. Arguing that heckling is a form of free speech creates a false equivalence between expressing an opposing viewpoint and actively suppressing someone else's speech.
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    > The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. I agree. Read the wording of the report, and it very clearly draws the line at what "shouting down" means: https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503/CFSR%202024_final.pdf https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503... They sampled students by asking them if they approve of three protesting scenarios, two nonviolent and one not. The statistic referenced in the title explicitly refers to the students who approve of nonviolent, nonobstructive protest. There is a specific, discrete and defined category for "Using violence to stop a campus speech." My original comment holds true under federal jurisdiction, as far as I can tell. Speech is speech.
    - mhb 3y ago
      I'm not sure what you're arguing. The first amendment is mainly incidental here since most of these places are not public universities. Preventing someone from speaking, as by heckling them, is not speech.
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        Of course it is, even if the speech is no more nuanced than 'shut up and go away.'
        mhb 3y ago
        Of course it's not. An audience can leave. Disrupting a speech and preventing others from hearing what someone has to say is not an exercise of free speech.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        smoldesu 3y ago
        If you create a public event on public property, you acknowledge that anyone can attend and exercise their rights adjacent to your event. Your only path of recourse for stopping a heckler is using the police, who cannot act on lawful public expression like heckling. Otherwise, today in the United States, you are out of luck. Any public venue where you have the right to speak to the public, you will be attended by people with the right to speak louder than you. That is part of the problem of using public property as a venue for a controversial speech. You have no right protecting you from interruption, ignorance or legal protest. If you are not hosting a public event, and it is on private property, then the host reserves the right to demand a guest to leave. In public, the ideals of heckling are directly consistent with protected, legal speech.
        mhb 3y ago
        Unsurprisingly, and despite your imaginings, you're wrong. The police will intervene on public property to remove hecklers who are prohibiting others from speaking. Today, in the United States. This letter from the dean of Stanford Law School apologizing for the heckling of a speaker there is a good place to start reading: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-school-dean-jenny-martinez-campus-community-march-22-2023 https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-s... "Of course, protests are in some instances protected by the First Amendment, but the First Amendment does not give protestors a “heckler’s veto.” As First Amendment scholar Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has written, “Freedom of speech does not protect a right to shout down others so they cannot be heard.” Erwin Chemerinsky & Howard Gillman, Free speech doesn’t mean hecklers get to shut down campus debate, WASH. P OST (Mar. 24, 2022), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-speech-doesnt-mean-hecklers-get-shut-down-campus-debate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-spee.... To the contrary, settled First Amendment law allows many governmental restrictions on heckling to preserve the countervailing interest in free speech. As the California Supreme Court stated in In re Kay, 464 P.2d 142, 149 (Cal. 1970), “the state retains a legitimate concern in ensuring that some individuals’ unruly assertion of their rights of free expression does not imperil other citizens’ rights of free association and discussion.” Thus, even in public forums such as the public streets, sidewalks, and parks, where free speech rights have greatest latitude, it is well-settled that the First Amendment allows the imposition of reasonable content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. See, e.g., Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 487-88 (1988)."
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Unless the government is doing the heckling all this is irrelevant. Oddly, there's been a conspicuous absence of 'free speech absolutists' throwing their bodies on the line to defend things like libraries and drag shows from hecklers, threats of violence, and (in some jurisdictions) government suppression.
  - raincom 3y ago
    Government can sponsor censorship through private entities such as non profits, think tanks, chairs, activist organizations, etc. So many ways, these days!!
anigbrowl 3y ago
And why not? Does the presence of someone on a stage nullify the free speech rights of those in the audience? It's rude to be sure, but then many obnoxious statements are made by prominent speakers; I see no reason they should be immunized from disagreement. A speaking platform's elevated surface is a proxy for elevated social status, which might be civil, political, or religious in form. The argument that communication should only flow one way is an implicit compulsion of obedience. One can of course argue that an effective retort is for audience members to turn their backs on the speaker or just leave. That can have some impact in a group setting, but ignores the degree to which video and photography inform public discourse. An experienced speaker, even if booed or ignored, just carries on giving the same speech while looking unfazed, and the lack of exterior reaction to criticism is what people will remember in any subsequent news coverage. News coverage of a speaking event rarely involves more than one camera, and this is sometimes enforced contractually. Only at music concerts and similar light entertainment where everyone is having a good time are audience shots a staple. Whatever you think of Donald Trump's politics/person, there's no question that he's an extremely effective public communicator. Early in his current political arc, he would exploit the rigid grammar of American news media by pausing he his speeches to urge the TV cameras to pan around the audience so TV viewers could witness the size of the crowd. Of course they wouldn't do thatl media outlets were there to report on his rallies, and wished neither to modify their cumbersome broadcast setups on the fly or be seen to be taking direction from the subject of their news coverage. Trump would then allege that their unwillingness to do so was motivated by the establishment's fear of his popularity, and the audience ate it up. As some of the novelty wore off and attendance at his rallies waned from early peaks, media access was limited to friendly digital outlets who feed had to be licensed by broadcasters. The fact is that a great many humans don't rely on analysis and reason alone to evaluate incoming information, but also on social cues. This is why 'reaction videos' are so popular on youtube; people want to see feeling on others' faces, either for validation of their own feelings or figure out what they 'ought to' think. There's people having entire online careers doing nothing but sharing affect in response to third party media; some non-negligible part of YouTube is just people selling their facial expressions to other people with unsatisfying social lives.
- mhb 3y ago
  Preventing someone from speaking is not an exercise of free speech.

9 points by mhb 3y ago

Regardless, any time there is a speaker on a campus, the flyer should denote how much that speaker was paid to speak there.

smoldesu 3y ago

Both sound like they're protected by the first amendment to me. If people are booing you and telling you to get off the proverbial stage, you may be at a public impasse.

mhb 3y ago
No. The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. Heckling someone stifles that person's right to express their ideas. Free speech is meant to protect the expression of ideas. Preventing someone from speaking is an act of silencing rather than an act of expressing an idea. Usually speakers at events are invited and the host has given them a platform. Disrupting them denies them that platform without providing a meaningful counter-argument or alternative viewpoint. Free speech requires an environment where ideas can be freely exchanged and debated. If one party is prevented from speaking, then no meaningful dialogue can occur. Arguing that heckling is a form of free speech creates a false equivalence between expressing an opposing viewpoint and actively suppressing someone else's speech.
- smoldesu 3y ago
  > The (US) first amendment protects citizens from government censorship and doesn't necessarily apply to private venues. I agree. Read the wording of the report, and it very clearly draws the line at what "shouting down" means: https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503/CFSR%202024_final.pdf https://5666503.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/5666503... They sampled students by asking them if they approve of three protesting scenarios, two nonviolent and one not. The statistic referenced in the title explicitly refers to the students who approve of nonviolent, nonobstructive protest. There is a specific, discrete and defined category for "Using violence to stop a campus speech." My original comment holds true under federal jurisdiction, as far as I can tell. Speech is speech.
  - mhb 3y ago
    I'm not sure what you're arguing. The first amendment is mainly incidental here since most of these places are not public universities. Preventing someone from speaking, as by heckling them, is not speech.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Of course it is, even if the speech is no more nuanced than 'shut up and go away.'
      - mhb 3y ago
        Of course it's not. An audience can leave. Disrupting a speech and preventing others from hearing what someone has to say is not an exercise of free speech.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        smoldesu 3y ago
        If you create a public event on public property, you acknowledge that anyone can attend and exercise their rights adjacent to your event. Your only path of recourse for stopping a heckler is using the police, who cannot act on lawful public expression like heckling. Otherwise, today in the United States, you are out of luck. Any public venue where you have the right to speak to the public, you will be attended by people with the right to speak louder than you. That is part of the problem of using public property as a venue for a controversial speech. You have no right protecting you from interruption, ignorance or legal protest. If you are not hosting a public event, and it is on private property, then the host reserves the right to demand a guest to leave. In public, the ideals of heckling are directly consistent with protected, legal speech.
        mhb 3y ago
        Unsurprisingly, and despite your imaginings, you're wrong. The police will intervene on public property to remove hecklers who are prohibiting others from speaking. Today, in the United States. This letter from the dean of Stanford Law School apologizing for the heckling of a speaker there is a good place to start reading: https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-school-dean-jenny-martinez-campus-community-march-22-2023 https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/letter-stanford-law-s... "Of course, protests are in some instances protected by the First Amendment, but the First Amendment does not give protestors a “heckler’s veto.” As First Amendment scholar Dean Erwin Chemerinsky has written, “Freedom of speech does not protect a right to shout down others so they cannot be heard.” Erwin Chemerinsky & Howard Gillman, Free speech doesn’t mean hecklers get to shut down campus debate, WASH. P OST (Mar. 24, 2022), https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-speech-doesnt-mean-hecklers-get-shut-down-campus-debate/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/24/free-spee.... To the contrary, settled First Amendment law allows many governmental restrictions on heckling to preserve the countervailing interest in free speech. As the California Supreme Court stated in In re Kay, 464 P.2d 142, 149 (Cal. 1970), “the state retains a legitimate concern in ensuring that some individuals’ unruly assertion of their rights of free expression does not imperil other citizens’ rights of free association and discussion.” Thus, even in public forums such as the public streets, sidewalks, and parks, where free speech rights have greatest latitude, it is well-settled that the First Amendment allows the imposition of reasonable content-neutral time, place, and manner restrictions. See, e.g., Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474, 487-88 (1988)."
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  Unless the government is doing the heckling all this is irrelevant. Oddly, there's been a conspicuous absence of 'free speech absolutists' throwing their bodies on the line to defend things like libraries and drag shows from hecklers, threats of violence, and (in some jurisdictions) government suppression.
- raincom 3y ago
  Government can sponsor censorship through private entities such as non profits, think tanks, chairs, activist organizations, etc. So many ways, these days!!

anigbrowl 3y ago

And why not? Does the presence of someone on a stage nullify the free speech rights of those in the audience? It's rude to be sure, but then many obnoxious statements are made by prominent speakers; I see no reason they should be immunized from disagreement. A speaking platform's elevated surface is a proxy for elevated social status, which might be civil, political, or religious in form. The argument that communication should only flow one way is an implicit compulsion of obedience. One can of course argue that an effective retort is for audience members to turn their backs on the speaker or just leave. That can have some impact in a group setting, but ignores the degree to which video and photography inform public discourse. An experienced speaker, even if booed or ignored, just carries on giving the same speech while looking unfazed, and the lack of exterior reaction to criticism is what people will remember in any subsequent news coverage. News coverage of a speaking event rarely involves more than one camera, and this is sometimes enforced contractually. Only at music concerts and similar light entertainment where everyone is having a good time are audience shots a staple. Whatever you think of Donald Trump's politics/person, there's no question that he's an extremely effective public communicator. Early in his current political arc, he would exploit the rigid grammar of American news media by pausing he his speeches to urge the TV cameras to pan around the audience so TV viewers could witness the size of the crowd. Of course they wouldn't do thatl media outlets were there to report on his rallies, and wished neither to modify their cumbersome broadcast setups on the fly or be seen to be taking direction from the subject of their news coverage. Trump would then allege that their unwillingness to do so was motivated by the establishment's fear of his popularity, and the audience ate it up. As some of the novelty wore off and attendance at his rallies waned from early peaks, media access was limited to friendly digital outlets who feed had to be licensed by broadcasters. The fact is that a great many humans don't rely on analysis and reason alone to evaluate incoming information, but also on social cues. This is why 'reaction videos' are so popular on youtube; people want to see feeling on others' faces, either for validation of their own feelings or figure out what they 'ought to' think. There's people having entire online careers doing nothing but sharing affect in response to third party media; some non-negligible part of YouTube is just people selling their facial expressions to other people with unsatisfying social lives.

mhb 3y ago
Preventing someone from speaking is not an exercise of free speech.