 I'm with the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, OOD. OOD works to coordinate the university's compliance with federal and state laws and university policies and procedures regarding discrimination, retaliation and sexual harassment and to promote and integrate the principles of equal opportunity, affirmative action, non-discrimination and excellence through diversity. OOD provides a neutral avenue for students, faculty and staff and those individuals conducting business with the university to explore diversity-related topics and address matters related to equal opportunity, sexual harassment and or discrimination. Today's event is part of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity's Campus Conversation series which aims to provide the campus community with opportunities to engage in dialogue about contemporary topics related to equal opportunity and diversity. Before we start, I would like to acknowledge and thank our co-sponsors for today's event that include UCI's Difficult Dialogues, Cross-Cultural Center for Citizenship and Peacebuilding, School of Humanities, School of Social Sciences and UCI's School of Law. A couple of reminders before we start again, I want to re-emphasize this. Thank you so much for all coming and for showing interest in today's talk. But I would like to have a couple of reminders. The format is fairly simple. We have approximately an hour or so. Our guest speaker will talk for about 20 to 30 minutes and then after that you will have an opportunity to ask questions. The only request that we have that your questions be brief and succinct to the point so that we allow as many of you to have their opportunity to ask the question and we hope all of you will ask the questions in a civil manner in line with our university standards. Also I would like to thank our Assistant Vice Chancellor and Executive Director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, Ms. Kirsten Kwambach, my supervisor for her support of today's event and for the Campus Conversation Series. The title of our event today is the First Amendment in a Multicultural Society and the topic will be explored by Erwin Chemerinsky, the Founding Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California Irvine Law School. Chemerinsky frequently argues appellate cases in the United States Supreme Court and the United States Court of Appeals. He is the author of six books and more than 100 law review articles that have appeared in many prestigious journals such as the Harvard Law Review. He writes a regular column on the Supreme Court for California Lawyer, Los Angeles Daily Journal, The Triad Magazine, and his expert opinion is frequently sought by others in the news media. In April 2005 he was named one of the top 20 legal thinkers in America in legal affairs. Please help me welcome Dean Chemerinsky. Thank you so much for the kind introduction. Thanks to all of you for taking some of your lunchtime to come here today. It's really an honor and a pleasure to get to speak with you. As you know, the meaning of the First Amendment came to campus this week. I intentionally say that it's not that the First Amendment came to campus or free speech came to campus because the First Amendment and free speech are here every day. And it's not the first time that the meaning of the free speech, meaning of the First Amendment, has come to this campus. Not even the first time it's come to campus in the context of controversy or controversy over the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Last spring, for example, there was a speaker on campus, Malik Ali, among other things, called for the end of the State of Israel. My email, my phone was filled with messages saying, shouldn't the campus be able to exclude him? He's expressing hate. What role does that have on campus? As you know, on Monday of this week when the Israeli ambassador was here, a group of individuals tried to interfere by shouting out. They were arrested. They were escorted off the premises. Those were students based discipline. My email, my phone has been filled for the last couple of days when those were saying, isn't this free speech? Aren't they protected by the First Amendment? The irony, of course, is that this talk was scheduled long ago. It's only coincidental that it happens to be this week. And what I was planning on talking about is the general principles of the First Amendment that apply not only to multicultural society generally, but on a college campus more specifically. And that's still what I'd like to do today. But it would be biopic to pretend that the events of this week didn't happen. And so what I want to try to do is sketch out the general principles of freedom of speech, First Amendment on campus, and then apply them to some of the disputes that we've had here, including what happened this week. So what I'd like to do is divide my brief remarks into three parts. First, I want to ask the question, why protect freedom of speech? Second, I want to ask, what are the general principles of free speech, especially those applied on college campuses? And then third, how do those principles apply to some of the disputes that we've seen here on the UCI campus? And as was said, I'll talk about 30 minutes and leave the rest of our time for questions. I do think it's important to start with the question, why protect free speech? Because I think we can only analyze what speech is safeguarded, under what circumstances, in the context of this larger question. There's a voluminous literature among constitutional scholars, among judges and justices, among political scientists trying to answer the question. I don't think there's any single answer to the question why we protect speech. There's many reasons. In part, it's about facilitating self-government. It's hard to imagine how a democracy could work without freedom of speech. It's speech that allows us to advocate for one candidate and to criticize another. It's speech which allows us to praise what the government's doing or challenge what the government's doing with the hope of changing the government's policies. That's as true on campuses as anywhere else. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was anti-Vietnam War protests on college campuses that played a key role in convincing Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election in 1968 and turning public attitudes more generally against the Vietnam War. Earlier in the same decade, it was college students rallying on behalf of civil rights, including on campuses who made an enormous difference. When you'd only look at totalitarian countries, how much they try to suppress speech to get a clear sense of how essential speech is to self-government. We also protect free speech because it's a path towards enlightenment, towards better understanding. Speech under the First Amendment that's protected is not just a limit of that that relates to politics and self-government. Much more than that is protected. That's because we believe that the exchange of ideas will help inform us all and we hope that in the long term, it will further the search for truth. Long ago, John Stuart Mill expressed this in his book on liberty. Some of you may have read it in political science or English courses. He says, let all speech be uttered. Let the false speech be refuted and let the true emerge. The late Justice Oliver the Holmes took this further in quoting the phrase, the marketplace of ideas. It's a wonderful romantic notion. Let all ideas be expressed with the hope in the end the good ones will triumph. The truth will emerge. Justice Holmes said, the best remedy for the speech we doubt like is more speech, not censorship or silence. Will truth always emerge in the marketplace of ideas? History shows us now. Are there going to be instances where terrible results can come from free speech? History shows us yes. History also teaches that the alternative to the marketplace of ideas is to let the government decide what's true and what's false and such imposed orthodoxy inevitably is worse than that which emerges from the marketplace of ideas. Free speech is also protected because it's an important part of autonomy. When an individual expresses himself or herself, a person is exercising a key aspect of autonomy. A part of our personhood is the ability to express ourselves. We express ourselves in countless ways. We express ourselves through our clothes and our appearance, with what we say and don't say, where we go and where we don't go. Of course, there's a danger in just focusing on autonomy. The expression of ideas may be the autonomy of some, but it can also limit the autonomy of others. In times we have to balance the autonomy of varying groups and deciding who we're going to protect and who not. This is the final reason why I think we protect free speech. When the album gets overlooked, I think that a central value of the First Amendment is tolerance. In fact, I think a unifying principle of all the disparate parts of the First Amendment is the importance of tolerance. Speech isn't at the beginning of the First Amendment. Religion is. Talk to another government, can't adopt a law respecting the establishment of religion, or abridging the free exercise they're of. Why have those traditions? Tolerance. We are a very diverse society with regard to religious views. The free exercise clause assures that each of us can practice our religion in any way we want, or practice no religion. The government can't establish a religion, but do anything respecting the establishment of religion, because inevitably, that will have a coercive effect, encouraging some and discouraging others from worshiping as they choose. Well, likewise, I think a key value of the First Amendment that comes to freedom of speech is tolerance. We need to be tolerant of the messages we dislike, as well as the messages we like. The reality is we don't need constitutional protection of free speech for the speech that we approve of and that we agree with. Society would naturally allow the speech to the majority likes, but constitutional protection of free speech is all about is the unpopular message. The message to the majority might want a silence or a censor. I don't think any of this is controversial, but I also don't think that we can talk about free speech on campus, or even the incidents here at UCI, why do we protect free speech? Well, if you accept with this quick overview of why you protect free speech, let me go to the second part of what I want to talk about. What principles guide free speech on college campuses? Let me again articulate several for you, and once more, I don't think that these are controversial. I think both liberals and conservatives could agree with what I'm going to say in terms of general principles. The first, the starting point should be to remember that free speech applies only in public universities. The First Amendment doesn't apply in private universities. More generally, of course, the Constitution's protection of liberties applies only to the government. Private conduct doesn't have to comply with the Constitution. This is so often forgotten. The Constitution and its protection of liberties applies just to the government. These are the examples. As you may know, before I arrived on campus a year and a half ago, I was a professor at Duke Law School. Duke University is a private school. If I were to give a speech there, criticizing the president of the university, I guess you say if I would have again given a speech, criticizing the president of the university, and he would have ordered me fired, I could not ensue the president of the university with university for violating my free speech rights. Since Duke is a private school, the First Amendment doesn't apply. Duke certainly, as a matter of university policy, can choose to protect free speech. But that's as a matter of university policy. The First Amendment doesn't apply. This, of course, is a state university. So if I would give a speech criticizing, Chancellor Michael Drake, or I could say if I were again to give a speech criticizing, I'm actually a huge fan of Michael Drake, and he would have ordered me fired, I could sue. I would sue if he fired me on the basis of my speech, since this is a state university. My other illustration of this very basic constitutional principle comes from a true story of a conversation I had with my older two children, and it was now 17 years ago, when they were nine and six, and we were in a grocery store. At the time Diet Coke was giving away free baseball cards, and three cards were pictured on the outside of the package. And as we walked up and down the aisles of the grocery store, my two sons were arguing over who was going to get the extra baseball cards. They thought since three were pictured on the outside of the package, there'd be three cards inside, and they wanted to know who was going to get the extra one. Finally, I said, be quiet. Anything else about baseball cards in the grocery store? My then nine-year-old turned me and said, you can't tell me to be quiet. I got freedom of speech. I was ready for him. I said, freedom of speech means that the government can't tell you to be quiet. I'm not the government, so I can. To which he, without missing a beat, turned me and said, well, you like the government to me, you shouldn't be able to tell me to be quiet. True story, it's when I first knew that someday he was going to go to law school. These examples illustrate something profoundly important. Free speech under the First Amendment applies on public university campuses, like this one. When it comes to private universities, the First Amendment doesn't apply. They can have their own policies and rules, but it's not constitutional. The second principle that I would identify is that the constitutional protection of free speech is not absolute. Every time I teach a course with regard to freedom of speech, whether to undergraduates in political science or law school, I've always got some students say free speech is absolute. That too is a wonderfully romantic notion. It means you never have to engage in any balancing. But it's also wrong. Long ago, another thing that Justice Oliver Wendell home said is that free speech doesn't protect the right to falsely shot fire in a crowded theater. It's obvious why that is so. I can give you countless examples that I think could persuade you that free speech can't be absolute. Think of perjury laws, laws that make it a crime to falsely testify under oath. They punish people for their speech. Think of sexual harassment laws. The employer who says to an employee, sleep with me or you'll be fired. That's punishing speech. But of course the employer can and should be punished for that. Bank robbery laws. The person who walks into a bank and gives a note and says, give me the money or I'll blow up the bank. The person says in defense, why don't you really have a bomb? It was just speech. That will lose as a defense in any court. I could go on and on with examples, but free speech is never an absolute. The government can always punish speech if it is a compelling reason or again in the words, volume of the holes, if there's a clear and present danger. Third principle, generally the government cannot punish speech based on its content. Generally the government cannot deny what speech to allow or what speech to prohibit based on the viewpoint expressed or even the topic discussed. Let me give you an easy example to explain it. Imagine that a city would have an ordinance saying that it would allow pro-war demonstrations in a park, but it wouldn't allow anti-war demonstrations in the park. That would be seen as going to the very heart of the First Amendment. Surely no government could say will allow speech praising of the president or the governor or the mayor and only punish speech critical of the president, the governor or the mayor. Such viewpoint discrimination is nimbical to what free speech is all about. Not long ago, Washington D.C. had an ordinance that said there could not be demonstrations within a couple hundred feet of a foreign embassy. They were likely to be embarrassing to the foreign government. Speech was allowed and it was praising of the foreign government. It was punished. It was critical of the foreign government. Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court declared that unconstitutional. That kind of viewpoint discrimination is inconsistent with the First Amendment. It's about self-government. It's about enlightenment through the marketplace of ideas. Justice the government can't stop speech about a particular viewpoint, nor generally can it punish speech on a particular topic. I'll give you an example and I can explain. Chicago adopted an ordinance that said there could be no picketing in residential neighborhoods unless it was a labor protest related to a place of employment. So speech was allowed if it was a labor protest but not on any other topic. The Supreme Court declared that unconstitutional. Why? Well imagine in the south in the early 1960s they said that we'll allow any demonstrations in the park but not civil rights related demonstrations. We won't allow pro-segregation or anti-segregation demonstrations. Now the real effect of that would be to stop the civil rights protesters. So that kind of topic-based restriction on speech would really in effect be a viewpoint restriction on speech. And so the Supreme Court has said unless there are compelling reasons the government cannot single out speech and punish it just because of the idea expressed. The viewpoint or the topic. Now there are exceptions to this. There's some kind of speech that the Supreme Court has said isn't protected. Incitement of illegal activity. Obscenity. False and deceptive advertising. Those are categories that the Supreme Court has said the government for compelling reasons can punish it. But each of them has been defined to be quite limited as to the speech that can be punished. So if you can accept my first three principles I think the fourth then follows from it that some government property is available for speech under some circumstances. The Supreme Court has recognized that the ability to use government for speech is essential in order of ideas communicated. But it can't be that all government property is available for speech under all circumstances. People can't stage a rally at rush hour down the middle of the 405 freeway. People can't go into the Supreme Court when it's in session and yell whatever they want to keep the justice in conducting oral argument. And so the Supreme Court has broadly speaking said there are some kinds of government properties that should be regarded as public forums where there's a right to use them for speech purposes and there's some kinds of government properties that are non-public forums where there's no right to use the property for speech purposes. Sidewalks and parks would be classic public forums. I've given you examples of non-public forums already. The 405 freeway at rush hour. The Supreme Court when oral arguments are in session. Now lawyers can litigate or argue of whether a particular piece of property is a public forum or a non-public forum. But it's very important as we talk about campuses. There are parts of this campus that I think are unquestionably public forums. There are outdoor spaces. I think the university has to make available for speech. But there are also places in this campus that are non-public forums. If you come into my class while I'm teaching and you yell out and disrupt my class you can be disciplined. You can even be arrested. My classroom is not a public forum. It's a place for teaching. It's a place for a specific purpose. That's my classroom. Obviously any classroom when classes are in session. Now even as to public forums the government is allowed to regulate and the phrase you probably heard on campus this week is there can be reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. Even as to the place that the government is constitutionally required to make available for speech the government can have time, place, and manner restrictions. And so for example this campus could say that certain kind of protests can't occur after 10 p.m. so as to protect their quality. This campus or any campus can say there are certain places in which we'll allow demonstrations and others where we won't because we don't have classes or research or use the library. Certain manner of speech can be prohibited. I think this campus could prohibit bull horns and sound trucks while it can't outlaw all speech. And we can argue and lawyers can litigate over what are reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions but it's clear that they can be there. For example, city adopted an ordinance that said there could be no trucks with sound amplification equipment operating in residential neighborhoods at night time. The Supreme Court have held it. Even though sidewalk streets are a public forum it's not absolute. Of course if it's a reasonable time, place, and manner restriction it leaves open adequate alternative places of communication. So these are the principles of speech apply in society generally and on campuses more specifically. So having talked about the more general now let me in the third and final part of my remarks address the specific. How are these principles applied to some of the controversies that we've had at UCI including this week? Let me give three examples. One a bit further removed from UCI in terms of controversy. The other two much more about this campus. The first involves a case that's now pending before the United States Supreme Court that certainly relates to groups on this campus as well. The case here is Christian legal society versus Martinez. You'll likely to read a lot about it in the news in the next few months. Christian legal society is a group of Christian law students at Hastings Law School. They had certain precepts among them that homosexuality was wrong and thus effectively they were a group that was not welcome to gay and lesbian students. The University of California at Hastings Law School up in San Francisco had the policy that a student group could not have official law school recognition unless it was open to all students that any student group that discriminated could not get school recognition. It means they couldn't use the bulletin board to put up their announcements. They couldn't get student activity funds and the like. Christian legal society sued the dean of the law school saying that it violated their first amendment rights, their free association rights, that they should be able to have whoever they want as members if they want to exclude those who don't follow their Christian precepts they should be able to do so. The lower federal courts ruled in favor of Hastings Law School the United States Supreme Court granted review. You can think how this might apply here on this campus. Can there be student groups that are officially recognized at the University of California at Irvine getting all the benefits that bestows that exclude some students? I hope that the United States Supreme Court will side with Hastings Law School here. As a dean of a law school at a public university I believe that all student groups that are officially recognized must be open to all students in the school. Now if there's a group of students that don't want to be open they can meet off campus, they can get together on their own anytime they want. But if they want the benefits that come with being officially recognized they should be available to all students. No group that's exclusive, no group that discriminates should be able to take the money of the university, the money from other students with student activity fees to be able to further that discrimination. We'll see what the Supreme Court does Second example What about hate speech on campus? Now for purpose of this I don't need to define hate speech you can think of your own example of vile hate speech You can think of racial epithets that might be on it You can think of derogatory things that can be said about a particular group Can a campus prohibit and punish hate speech? The answer is clearly no. However despicable the message there's a First Amendment right to honor it The First Amendment as I said safeguards the ability to express the messages we like but also the messages that we import In the early 1980s the Nazi party wanted to march through Skokie, Illinois They picked Skokie on purpose It was a predominantly Jewish suburb of Chicago with a large number of Holocaust survivors and Skokie tried to stop them from marching saying that they're advocating genocide They're inciting violence They're causing psychic pain And the courts all ruled against Skokie in favor of the Nazi party They did so based on the principles that I mentioned to you earlier The government can't single out any idea However repugnant the majority find it said it can't be expressed that there is a right to use the sidewalks in the parks to express views so long as reasonable time, place and manner restrictions are followed In the 1980s and into the 1990s over 200 colleges across the country adopted so called hate speech codes And the hate speech codes were phrased in varying ways And they all were motivated by the best intentions They were all about trying to further a quality on campus trying to make campus the place where everyone can feel comfortable where everyone feels welcome Every court that has ruled on a hate speech code is declared unconstitutional because there isn't a category of hate speech that's unprotected by the First Amendment More recently the Supreme Court considered a Virginia law the private cross burning a particularly vile way of expressing hate to American history And the Supreme Court in an 8 to 1 decision declared a law unconstitutional saying that there is a right to burn a cross as a way of expressing a message Now there's no right to threaten another There is no right to make another fear for his or her safety at the point at which hate speech becomes a verbal assault that it reasonably cause a person to fear for his or her safety Then that speech can be punished Threats are never protected by the First Amendment But the expression of hate even in a pugnant way is speech protected by the First Amendment Went to a meeting last spring a number of people in the community The first two talked about illegally and what he said on campus last spring and they said how can we make sure he never comes here to speak again He can't. He has the First Amendment right campus to speak You may agree or you may disagree with him but there's no doubt that somebody who comes and expresses his message has the right to do so In any effort by the university to stop him would immediately be followed by a lawsuit and the lawsuit would surely succeed There isn't any set of ideas that can be excluded by a college campus and unpopular the idea is not like what politely says bringing your own speakers demonstrate outside against him in a peaceful way but you can't silence speech just because you don't like it If there's any place in our society that should be truly the marketplace of ideas where all views are expressed all views are discussed it has to be the college campus Well finally my example what about Monday night is the reason the attendance is larger than expected and they moved to a larger venue was the events from Monday night I think that the university handled it in exactly the right way There was a speaker brought to campus and as I understand it one after another individuals stood up and yelled out to disrupt it and I've heard from several emails and messages that they were just expressing their free speech rights but remember free speech is the absolute remember there can be time place and manner restrictions you have the right to disagree with me by going outside and having your own speech holding up signs and banners and it'll be a question and answer period where so long as you're brief you can disagree with me there too but you don't have the first amendment right to come here now in a sponsored activity and try to shout me down the university can create a time place and manner restriction that protects that the university has to have such a rule otherwise a group can always silence a speaker just through a heckles veto anybody who didn't like it was said on Monday night could prevent that person from speaking just by shouting and down and then when somebody from an opposing UK that person could be shouted down babble results the supreme court has long made clear that we can't tolerate a heckles veto or otherwise effectively there is no free speech and so I do not believe that those who interfered with the speech on Monday can reasonably claim that what they were doing was protected by free speech it's not protected under the first amendment they can be punished for disruption they can be disciplined by the university I make no judgment about what they should be the processes that are being followed need to come to their completion but I also think it's a mistake to say free speech right to disrupt other speakers that's inconsistent with the principles of the first amendment that I mentioned free speech raises for any college campus some of the most sensitive and difficult issues but of course if you think about it we wouldn't have constitutional protection for free speech if it didn't matter if free speech was something that was irrelevant to all of us would hardly be in the first amendment of the constitution and I think that the best solution for all on any side of dispute is what the first amendment is all about tolerance the expression and discussion of ideas being respectful for the expression and discussion of all ideas and if that happens then the university is really fulfilling its highest mission I've talked my half out and I'm glad to take your questions there's microphones in the front I'm glad to repeat the questions firstly thank you for the event I think it's very constructive and it's part of the solution rather than vicious attacks and threats you talked about Amir Abdul Malik he was I've been to many of his talks he was disrupted and I've seen many times where other speakers were disrupted and you can go to YouTube or just google it many many events are disrupted all over the country I've never seen this kind of vicious attacks against the protesters or the disruptors so what do you have to say about selective enforcement of laws also I want to ask about what process do you use as a law school because you could select which events you want to co-sponsor and I think a lot of the anger came behind the fact that many speakers who represent one side of the issue were always co-sponsored by the school they got the law school they got the chancellor to be there and so many of the protesters I've talked to them they seem to agree that the speaker that was invited does not stand for free speech just last year I don't want to make a political statement but he does not stand for a lot of the values you talked about so these are the two points so as to the latter point it's an easy question I have co-sponsored every event on campus that the law schools may have to co-sponsor so long as it doesn't cost the law school any money to do so I don't have any money when we co-sponsor so I think many of you have asked me to co-sponsor something this year I've said do you want money from the law school because we don't have any to offer but if you're just asking us to co-sponsor I have not said no to any event any speaker on campus of any viewpoint with regard to Israeli-Palestinian dispute or with regard to any others I probably would want some tie-in to law in some way but pretty remote in that way but I've practiced no viewpoint discrimination no subject matter discrimination other than tie-in to law and in that sense it's an easy question and I will continue to do that as long as I'm the dean of a law school I want the law school to be co-sponsoring events that bring ideas and discussion to campus second I obviously am against selective enforcement and we need to talk about selective enforcement I promise you that I will stand up and speak loudly for the right of those who take the Palestinian position if there is one with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and equally loudly to speak in front of those who take the more Israeli side of that dispute I want to practice no viewpoint discrimination likewise I will speak very loudly that anyone who disrupts a speaker should be appropriately disciplined that disrupting a speaker is not an appropriate form of discourse on campus and I believe that the Israeli ambassador had the right to speak here I believe that those who take the other positions dispute are the right to speak here but those who disrupt them are acting in a way not in accord with the campus rules and not in accord with the first amendment Thank you for coming so it's a little bit long side but this is part of the public of American society if it wasn't for activists like Martin Luther King who took a stand and protested in a non-violent manner many of the opportunities afforded to us today would probably not be available those courageous enough to be a part of the civil rights movement were often punished disproportionately as well so on Monday students chose to make a stand and speak up to a representative of the nation responsible for more human rights violations than any other nation I believe that there were demonstrations I believe the ambassador was still allowed to finish his speech after all of this people seemed foul so my question is what role does civil disobedience play in this discourse about free speech and what role do you think this legacy of civil disobedience should play in the decision making of the administration Civil disobedience is very important as a way of expressing ideas as a way of convincing others but one key part of civil disobedience is if you break the law then you're also accepting as part of civil disobedience that you can be punished for that and so people can break the law in the name of civil disobedience but they then know that they're punished you're not excused from punishment if you break the law just because you say I'm being civil disobedient you mentioned Dr. Martin Luther King give you an example of this you've probably read and if you haven't read the letter from Birmingham jail we may not remember the context in which that happened he wanted to stage a march on Easter Sunday in Birmingham, Alabama a racist state court judge issued an injunction saying that the march could not happen Dr. King went ahead with the march anyway and was arrested and the United States Supreme Court in a case called Walker v. City of Birmingham said that he could be punished for violating the judge's order he was civil disobedient but part of that was he had to take the consequences of it there's a wonderful civil rights museum in Birmingham, Alabama I encourage you to go to it and if you go to it you'll see in the jail cell where you wrote that and it's the notion of yes you can commit civil disobedience but if you break the law then you take the consequences of that and I will leave for the courts to decide the law was violated now I don't make one other point about Israel and whether it's violating human rights I don't want by my silence to indicate that I'm agreeing with that it's just beyond the scope of my talk others who are much more knowledgeable can come and have a discussion about whether Israel is or is not violating human rights I'm here to talk about free speech other questions come on up to the microphone thank you very much for commenting my question goes as far as as far as we talk about free speech what certain groups on this campus are certain things to be said to slander certain groups that affects maybe their rights it affects kind of the politics on the campus as far as what is going on who's co-sponsoring what type of events as far as civil disobedience goes and as far as that that reputation that is built up of certain groups on campus what do you recommend them to do if their voices are not being heard through any other form besides civil disobedience I would hope that this campus will do everything it can to make all of its students of all views all races all religions feel comfortable and feel that this is an environment which they can learn which is ultimately what the university is about I would hope that this university will make its facilities equally available for all viewpoints to be expressed I've been on campus only a year and a half many of you have been here much longer than me but it's certainly my sense of it and I know that at times groups feel that their view isn't the popular view but it's different than saying that the group doesn't have the opportunity to express itself I would hope that there would be many opportunities to express other than civil disobedience there's plenty of space on campus for views to be expressed and if there's any student who feels that here she is being punished for lawful speech come see me I'll be the first one to stand up for you whatever your viewpoint and give you the right to do it go ahead do you want to follow maybe to clarify my point I don't mean that as far as the facility is not being equal I mean as far because I believe that I don't think about the facility being equal what I'm talking about is the opportunity being equal as far as like let's say group X has a certain amount of pressure or a community has a certain amount of influence and because of that the school is able to it puts on more events and they're able to co-sponsor more events for group X whereas group Y because of that political pressure the school will refrain from that group will put that group you know kind of on the back shove them to the back what are groups supposed to do then how are you supposed to get your message when you're going student groups versus political pressure I don't know if actually that's true or not so it's hard to answer I also work you know there's a very famous study done by a social psychologist by now Hans Toad about a football game between Princeton and Dartmouth and those of you who take social psychology may remember it and he showed the film of the football game to students at each of those schools and asked who was responsible for the fight that broke out and all the students in one school said it was the students from the other and all the students played as a person and there's always the danger I think of each side can say we're really the victims they get their chance to express themselves all the time but we don't I don't know if on campus that's so the one thing that I can say having been here for a year and a half is I truly believe that Chancellor Michael Drake wants to create this as a forum where all views can be expressed that I think that he has been criticized sharply from every side of this but having spoken to him at length I don't think there could be a chancellor who more wants this to be a forum and ideas to be expressed in it and if you feel that there's one side that's not getting their fair chance to express I think he would go out of his way to make sure that it can't be there's a lot of those yes questions I want to address a very different aspect of free speech during your talk you used at one point a metaphor I've never liked and that is the marketplace of ideas it always sounded to me a bit like ideas were being bought and sold the reason I particularly want to get on this is the recent Supreme Court decision about corporations I know you've written on this subject and I'd like you to address the question of whether or not that is an issue of free speech so much more comfortable to talk about that um I'm not going to defend the marketplace of ideas metaphor I didn't coin it I think what it really does is simply say little ideas expressed and then we have the hope that the discussion will lead to more enlightenment and the alternative to that is government censorship I'm very critical as you know of the Supreme Court decision from about three weeks ago that corporations have the right to spend on a limited amount of money election campaigns now there's many reasons for that because back to where I started autonomy is one reason we protect speech autonomy is something about individuals it's about personhood corporations don't have autonomy they're fictional entities I worry about I'll use the phrase the marketplace of ideas I worry that corporate wealth can have a real distorting effect with regard to political elections I think that there's a real danger that corporate spending can drown out other voices and have disproportionate influence for a century there have been federal laws regulating corporate spending in elections many of those were invalidated by what the Supreme Court did a few weeks ago so in that sense I think there's a quite radical decision that's going to change the nature of elections it's a short answer to the question it doesn't really relate to a few speech in a multicultural society but it is why I'm very concerned about it I just don't think corporations have the same rights as individuals under the First Amendment and even if they did I think there's a compelling interest in limiting corporate spending in elections so as to create a more even playing field for elective office a few questions let's do one at a time the 12 protesters went and they spoke what they had to say and then while watching the video clip you saw a teacher ranting out about how they're all going to fill their exams and then there's other protesters that sat down flicking off the protesters to begin with are they not going to get any punishment either or just the 12 protesters at UCI campus that we're dealing with again what punishment will happen to them through the legal system or through the university is now in process but I want to draw a distinction between the two things that you said those who stood up and shouted down the ambassador and those who used it have seen gesture they're very different shouting down a speaker who's precipitously present isn't behaving particularly first amendment if somebody comes now and tries to shout me down that's not speech that's protected by the first amendment what you did, what I did is speech protect by the first amendment so I'm going to use the word if if individuals intentionally disrupted an event on Monday night the first amendment doesn't protect what they did and then the courts will have to decide what occurred and what punishment is appropriate the university will have to decide as to student discipline I don't like obscene gestures I don't use them even in traffic situations but it's different than disrupting by keeping somebody from speaking and so it's crude, it's inappropriate but there's a different effect of that than keeping somebody else from being able to be heard next question you were talking about the clear and present danger I do get caught before so I kind of understand what the whole clear and present danger is however I don't believe that the 12 students displayed a clear and present danger because they basically just spoke what they had to say they weren't threatening the ambassador they weren't threatening anyone else in the audience they were basically yeah, their speech, I don't believe is freedom of speech I don't think they could claim that but I don't think that they were threatening anyone I think what you do is make a mistake of saying because the government can punish speech when there's a clear and present danger that therefore the government can only punish speech when there's a clear and present danger one doesn't follow that let's take false advertising false advertising is not protected by the first amendment you don't need to prove a clear and present danger threat there is no first amendment right to make a true threat to phrase the court use against another don't have to show a clear and present danger if you send a letter to the president of the United States threatening the president's life you can be punished no need for a court to have to find a clear and present danger again I'll use the word it if the students on Monday disrupted the speaker from keeping the speaker from being heard that's not speech protected by the first amendment there doesn't have to be a clear and present danger in order for them to be punished for that if somebody shouts out now for a long time to keep me from being heard they can be punished for that that can be disturbing the peace without a clear and present danger so the key to remember is speech can be punished if there's a clear and present danger but speech can be punished in certain circumstances without a clear and present danger one question is I've been hearing rumors that the MSU is going to be closed by the university because of what the 12 process is that would that ever be a question I have not heard that it's inconceivable to me that this university would ever do that freedom of association is also a first amendment right on campus and so I would hope that the university would never do such a thing I can't imagine knowing Michael Drake that the university would go in that direction I've not heard anything like that I just had a quick question you were talking about when there's a clear and present danger that someone can be arrested for that or there will be punishment for that something that we noticed I think a lot of the reason that people ask about a bias in the protests between arresting and nobody else was during the whole process in front of the police there were a lot of people shouting basically death threats there was a guy that walked up to a group of people and said we're going to kill you all like dogs and there were plenty of people that were you know there was a lot of racial things said so if there's a clear and present danger if somebody says they're going to kill you like a dog that seems like a death threat to me shouldn't there have been action against them again I don't know what was said I don't know the context in which it was said it is really hard to talk about hypothetical there are ways in which to say you can say to somebody I'm going to kill you there's a lot of true threat there's ways in which you can say I'm going to kill you in which it is a true threat the question would be is it a true threat so I don't know in that context what was said or how it was said on the other hand to say we're going to arrest people for certain activities doesn't mean you have to arrest everything and as I understand it from what I've seen from Monday night the individuals were warned and therefore they'd be arrested that's what I was saying is what any university can do by way of time, place, manner, restriction so I'm just wondering how do you differentiate that between the two because I mean either way it seems pretty serious so is it up to just one's judgment to decide if they feel like it's a real threat or not police have to make a judgment ultimately courts have to make a judgment and we're talking about different principles one is is there a true threat the other is is there a disturbance of the peace there may be places they overlap but they're not identical for the interest of time I know as we advertise our event it should conclude at one o'clock so I your permission Dean would you be okay last question my question is you brought up the themes of hate speech and you also brought up the themes of incitement where in general where is the line drawn between incitement of violence terrorism and hate speech and how does terrorism and support terrorism fall into this being here in 30 seconds or less the Supreme Court has said that there's a test for when something's incitement not protected by the First Amendment the case was Brandenburg for Ohio in 1969 it said that people can be punished for incitement if there's a substantial likelihood of imminent illegal activity and if the speech is directed at causing imminent illegal activity that's a tough test to me you can only punish somebody for inciting if there's a substantial likelihood their speech is going to cause imminent illegality and if the speech is directed at causing imminent illegality in terms of terrorist activity it's a broad question obviously if somebody would be inciting terrorist activity and meet that test they can be punished on the other hand there are certainly things of aiding and abetting terrorist activity that can be punished even if it doesn't meet to the test of incitement there isn't a First Amendment right to give money for example to a terrorist group and people can be punished for that but we need to talk much more specifically about what particular laws and what specific applications with regard to terrorist activity let me conclude by thanking you again for coming and thanking you so much for the respect the way you treat me