Free speech doesn't mean the right to shout down someone else
The NYT has a very interesting and thoughtful article on a recent event at Stanford were law students heckled and shouted down a Federal Judge who was trying to give a speech. The Judge was a trump appointee and the speech was sponsored by the Federalist Society. The piece in the Times was at very least even handed---and in my mind tilted against from the students.
Here is a discussion of that event.
To Stanford's credit they have put a Dean, who defended the students (even encouraged them) on leave while the head of the University has publicly apologized for the conduct of the students.
Stanford’s own policy, as well as California’s Leonard Law, provides Stanford students First Amendment-like free speech rights. But contrary to the argument of the Stanford protestors on their masks and flyers, shouting down an invited speaker is not free speech. It’s a heckler’s veto — and it’s censorship.
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” ---Sir Winston Churchill
"Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all." ---John W. Gardner
“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” ---C. S. Lewis
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