In October, Brown University protesters prevented New York City Police Chief Ray Kelly from speaking.
During Kelly’s talk, titled “Proactive Policing in America’s Biggest City,” protesters loudly chanted slogans and read prepared text, drowning out Kelly. A university administrator tried to reason with the protesters, but to no avail.
As a result, after a failed half-hour attempt at regaining control of the room, the lecture was cancelled. As covered extensively at Legal Insurrection, the protesters have received support from several professors, two of whom also are active in the anti-Israel movement. Leftist and anti-Israel shout downs are just about the only shout downs on campus these days.
But don’t think it’s just Brown. There is a long history of liberals and anti-Israeli groups shouting down speakers with whom they disagree.
Here are five examples other than Brown:
In 2009, students at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, brought Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo’s talk about illegal immigration to a halt by shouting him down. When Tancredo asked ironically, “This is the free speech crowd, right?” a student responded, “not for hate speech!” The students continued to chant, “No dialogue with hate!” as Tancredo struggled to get across a single word.
In 2002, a scheduled lecture by then Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was cancelled at Concordia University after protesters became violent.
Violence broke out when members of the Minutemen visited Columbia to speak. Left-wing protesters shouted Minutemen co-founder Jim Gilchrist, took to the stage, and waved protest banners. The president of Columbia’s College Republicans told O’Reilly later:
“People are saying it was the speaker’s fault for antagonizing the crowd. When in reality, anyone who was there could tell you that at the beginning, they were chanting, they were cheering, they wore masks, they threw papers at the stage, and the second they came out with the banner it was a signal for the rioters in the audience.”
At 1:32 in the video, witness how students clap and cheer when a student interrupts Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, as he begins his lecture at UC Irvine. When an administrator insists that the students be, “polite and courteous to our guests,” the students boo. Oren urges the students that, “you haven’t come to this campus to hear one idea, you’ve come to this campus to hear a multiplicity of ideas,” and not to “squander the opportunity.” Students react instead by shouting him down again. This happens over and over again during his lecture.
During former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ lecture at the University of Florida, two protesters walked to the stage and approached the podium in an intimidating way. Students started cheering, and Gonzales’ speech came to a halt. Meanwhile, students booed at him, held up signs, and turned their backs on him with the word “SHAME” on the backs of their shirts.
These are only five examples, but many more exist. They include:
– Protestors threw a pie at Ann Coulter during her speech at University of Arizona
– College students chased David Petraeus and shouted at him before CUNY lecture
– David Horowitz was booed off stage when giving a lecture at Emory University
I’m not sure how liberal students justify these actions while simultaneously talking about respecting diversity and inclusion. It appears that there is a lot of hypocrisy going on on college campus.
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