To the Editor:
Re “Charges Against Muslim Students Prompt Debate Over Free Speech” (news article, Feb. 10):
Whatever the wisdom of filing criminal charges against students who thwarted a speech by Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at the University of California, Irvine, it is disheartening that the students’ supporters continue to maintain, even after the university disciplined them, that their actions constituted an exercise of free speech.
Questioning a speaker, challenging a speaker, is free speech. Interrupting and shouting him down is not. To deprive one’s classmates of an opportunity to hear speakers with varying viewpoints inhibits the exchange of ideas that is the essence of freedom of speech. It also undermines the purpose of a college education: exposing students to clashing ideas.
If other universities share the misapprehension of what freedom of speech entails, they should consider the example of the University of California, which in this case has distinguished between permissible and protected expressions of disagreement and unprotected and intolerable disruption.
Marc D. Stern
Associate General Counsel
American Jewish Committee
New York, Feb. 10, 2011
Re “Charges Against Muslim Students Prompt Debate Over Free Speech” (news article, Feb. 10):
Whatever the wisdom of filing criminal charges against students who thwarted a speech by Michael B. Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, at the University of California, Irvine, it is disheartening that the students’ supporters continue to maintain, even after the university disciplined them, that their actions constituted an exercise of free speech.
Questioning a speaker, challenging a speaker, is free speech. Interrupting and shouting him down is not. To deprive one’s classmates of an opportunity to hear speakers with varying viewpoints inhibits the exchange of ideas that is the essence of freedom of speech. It also undermines the purpose of a college education: exposing students to clashing ideas.
If other universities share the misapprehension of what freedom of speech entails, they should consider the example of the University of California, which in this case has distinguished between permissible and protected expressions of disagreement and unprotected and intolerable disruption.
Marc D. Stern
Associate General Counsel
American Jewish Committee
New York, Feb. 10, 2011
